By Dan Ambrose: Grizzled veteran 47-year-old Bernard Hopkins is going with WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (25-0, 13 KO’s) to beat Chad Dawson (31-1, 17 KO’s) in their fight on September 8th at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. Hopkins, 47, just thinks the 28-year-old Ward will be too good for Dawson.

Hopkins said to the Boxing Voice “Chad will be in the fight early on, but Andre has more tools and I think he’s more comfortable at 175, which is where he won the Olympics at. I think he has more in his arsenal. I think he comes with a better gun.”

Ward does have better tools with his good inside and outside fighting ability. He doesn’t, however, have better power than Dawson. I have to give the power edge to the 6’3″ Dawson, as well as a two inch height advantage over the 6’1″ Ward. However, Dawson’s power and size advantage won’t help him unless he throws a lot more punches than he did in his recent win over Hopkins.

Dawson could have made that fight a much more lopsided fight if he had just let his hands go a lot more instead of hanging back and being so economical with his shots. It looked like Dawson was second guessing himself at times and also kind of tired. He can’t afford to tire out against Ward or be economical with his shots because he’ll lose the fight if he doesn’t let his hands go enough.

Ward looked great in his last fight against Carl Froch in the Super Six tournament last December. Ward was able to take the fight to the inside and keep Froch off balance by not letting him get leverage on his shots. Froch needed to be able to get room to throw his shots, and Ward wasn’t about to do this with him. Ward will likely attempt to do the same thing with the long armed Dawson because he can’t afford to stay on the outside if he wants to win.