By Jason Kim: Chad Dawson’s 2nd round TKO win over WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KO’s) on Saturday night will likely be overturned when it gets reviewed by the California Athletic Commission or the World Boxing Council.

However, Hopkins really needs to consider hanging up the gloves because I think he would have lost badly tonight had it gone the full 12. He looked old and slow, and I’m not sure he could even beat guys like Beibut Shumenov, Tavoris Cloud or Nathan Cleverly at this stage. Hopkins can’t throw a lot of punches and those could be outwork him.

For boxing fans who didn’t see the fight, Hopkins missed a right hand in the 2nd round and then leaned over the back of a ducking Dawson in what appeared to be an effort to smother Dawson to keep him from throwing shots. Dawson, who already been shoved down by Hopkins earlier in a similar move, was having none of it this time. Dawson shouldered the 46-year-old Hopkins off his back, sending Hopkins to the canvas where he landed on his left shoulder, injuring it. Hopkins looked to be in a lot of pain, and this led to the referee stopping the fight right there and not letting Hopkins try to continue fighting. Why the referee didn’t take a point off from Dawson is anyone’s guess.

If I was speculate why he didn’t, perhaps it was because he didn’t buy into the injury for some reason. In past fights against Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones Jr. recently, Hopkins hit the deck numerous times in what many boxing fans saw as tactic to get these guys penalized. There’s no telling why the referee didn’t take a point off from Dawson in this fight, but if he saw the Jones-Hopkins and Calzaghe-Hopkins fights, then this could have been a concern for the referee. Of course, there’s no way of knowing what was going through the referee’s mind until he actually speaks about it.

In hindsight, it’s too bad that Hopkins didn’t get up and continue fighting because he’s taking a lot of heat from boxing fans right now with a lot of them thinking he faked the injury to take the easy way out.If Hopkins was just trying to get a point taken away, and really wasn’t hurt, then he should have gotten up immediately instead of staying down so long. By staying down so long, it pretty much left the referee with no other choice but to stop the fight.

Hopkins didn’t show much in the way of offensive skills in this fight, and looked to be trying to use his punch and grab technique and it wasn’t particularly effective.

As for Hopkins, I think he needs to retire. I can’t see him beating Dawson in a rematch no matter if the fight result gets overturned or not. And Hopkins would have to fight Dawson again because he’ll be looked at with skepticism by a lot of fans until he fights Dawson again and does a better job if that’s possible. I frankly don’t think it is. I see Dawson beating Hopkins 100 out of a 100 times with ease. Hopkins can beat some of the fighters in the top 10, but Dawson probably isn’t one of them. A rematch between Dawson and Hopkins will only confirm what tonight’s fight already showed.