By Dan Ambrose: PHOTO CREDIT: Gene Blevins – Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions – Chad “Bad” Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) has put together, with the help of trainers John Scully and Winky Wright, what he sees as the perfect game plan to beat 46-year-old WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins on Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Dawson isn’t saying what the strategy is but you can guess it involves staying busy, throwing lots of punches, not letting Hopkins get his badly rest breaks and using his jab a lot to keep Hopkins on the outside pinned down.

Dawson said “We have a great game plan. I don’t see Bernard getting past it…This is my time to shine…I have always been quiet. I have four brothers and they are all quiet. I don’t brag…I’ll always be humble.”

Dawson goes into this fight as a slight underdog, but mostly because of his performance against Jean Pascal last year. Dawson lost that fight by an 11th round technical decision and a lot of boxing fans point to that fight as the reason why Hopkins will beat Dawson on Saturday. Hopkins recently defeated Pascal by a 12 round unanimous decision and had little problems with Pascal’s hand speed or power. However, Dawson is capable of a lot more than he showed in the Pascal fight, and I think that’s what we’re going to see from him on Saturday.

It won’t be a shock for me to see Dawson dominate Hopkins and win every round of the fight, because I already know he’s a better than Hopkins. But for fans who aren’t really familiar with Dawson, they’ll be in for a shock and will no doubt become Dawson fans after he gets through with Hopkins.

Dawson says “I’ll be a problem for Bernard and I think he knows that.”

I agree. Hopkins looks more worried for this fight than I can ever remember him except for his first fight against Roy Jones Jr. I think Hopkins suspects he’s about to get beaten and beaten badly in front of the entire world.