Hopkins vs. Pascal in December on HBO

By Jim Dower: WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1, 16 KO’s) could be facing 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins (51-5-1, 32 KO’s) in December o HBO, according to boxing news from RDS.ca. The promoter for the 27-year-old Yvon Michel says that Golden Boy Promotions, Hopkins’ promoter, has approached him for a fight between Hopkins and Pascal.

HBO reportedly is interested in this match-up and see it as an appealing fight. I don’t know if it is or not. Hopkins hasn’t looked really good since beating Kelly Pavlik by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision two years ago in October 2008. Hopkins has had two fights since then, beating Enrique Ornelas and Roy Jones Jr. but didn’t look good in either of those fights.

Some people think that Hopkins looked rusty, whereas others think he is starting to look old. I’m on the latter side. I think Hopkins is starting to show his age and may no longer be good enough to beat talented fighters like Pascal, Beibut Shumenov and Tavoris Cloud, three of the light heavyweight champions in the division.

Pascal defeated Chad Dawson by an 11 round technical decision on August 14th and looked good for the most part until the 10th and 11th when Pascal ran out of gas. However, it’s doubtful that Hopkins, who doesn’t put his punches together in a real way anymore, could flurry on Pascal the way that Dawson was doing in the 10th and 11th rounds.

Still, it will be interesting to see if Hopkins can somehow get by Pascal. It will be one huge test for Hopkins at this point in his career. If he loses to Pascal, Hopkins might need to consider retirement because there aren’t a lot of options out there for him at this point unless he wants to fight the less popular fighters. Hopkins said recently that he would like to fight WBA heavyweight champion David Haye, but that’s not going to happen, especially if Hopkins loses t Pascal.

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