Dawson: Hopkins can’t beat a guy like me

By Boxing News - 08/09/2011 - Comments

Image: Dawson: Hopkins can’t beat a guy like meBy Dan Ambrose: Former two-time light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) will have a huge advantage in the youth department over the 46-year-old WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) on October 15th in their HBO pay per view bout at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

It isn’t just that the 28-year-old Dawson is the much younger fighter, but he’s also faster and with technical skills that Hopkins simply doesn’t possess. Hopkins is the master and has a lot of boxing knowledge in terms of strategy, but it’s going to be really tough for him to accomplish that against Dawson due to his youth, speed and technical abilities.

“I’m faster, stronger, younger,” Dawson said in an article at the Los Angeles Times. “Hopkins] hasn’t shown over the last decade that he can beat a guy like me.”

This may rub some of the Hopkins fans the wrong way, but Dawson speaks the truth. The closest thing that Hopkins has come to fighting a guy with as much talent and youth is his two fights with Jermain Taylor in 2005, both of which Hopkins lost. He couldn’t deal with Taylor’s hand speed, boxing ability and combinations. The same was true – but to a much lesser extent – in Hopkins loss to Joe Calzaghe. Hopkins had problems with Calzaghe’s speed, work rate and combinations. He literally couldn’t keep up with Calzaghe and ended up losing by a 12 round decision.

“This is my ultimate dream, to be in the ring and dethrone Bernard Hopkins,” said Dawson. It takes a fighter with superb boxing skills to beat a warrior like Hopkins, but Dawson has got what it takes in abundance to get the job done. Hopkins is going to have to come up with a good plan other than psychological intimidation in the pre-fight build up during the press conferences. That trick has already been tried and failed on Dawson by guys like Antonio Tarver.

You got to be able to bring it into the ring and show that you have the talent – and the youth – to beat a guy like Dawson. I don’t think that Hopkins has got enough left to win this fight. Even in his prime, I see Hopkins losing to Dawson. He’s the wrong kind of fighter for him to beat. Hopkins does well against guys that he can wrestle and mug on the inside. You can’t do that with Dawson, because he’s good at moving out of the way of shorter and slower fighters like Hopkins as they rush forward trying to land.



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