Hopkins: Shumenov is not going to beat me

By Boxing News - 04/16/2014 - Comments

02 Hopkins IMG_3820(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Allan Fox: 49-year-old Bernard Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KO’s) is confident that he’ll be holding onto his IBF light heavyweight champion on Saturday night in his unification bout against WBA light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov (14-1, 9 KO’s) DC Armory, in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Hopkins wants to win Shumenov’s WBA title and then possibly move forward to fight WBC champ Adonis Stevenson after that.

The Stevenson fight is still not a definite thing in Hopkins’ plans, because he might choose to do something else. Stevenson wants the fight, but it’s still unclear whether Hopkins will choose to face him. Hopkins has a lot of easy marks for top contenders such as Dimitri Sukhotsky, Anatoliy Dudchenko, Nadjib Mohammedi and Sean Monaghan. With contenders like that, Hopkins could remain champion for another 2-3 years before someone eventually beats him.

“Shumenov wants to make a name for himself by defeating me,” Hopkins said. “All the young guns want to make it big, and beating me would do that for Shumenov, but that’s not going to happen.”

Hopkins is wrong about Shumenov making it big off of a win over him. Shumenov still wouldn’t be considered a big name even if he beat Hopkins. With Hopkins being nearly 50, no one is going to get a big name off of beating him. Shumenov, if he can win this fight, he’d still need to beat Adonis Stevenson before he could get a big name, and the chances of Shumenov doing that aren’t very good based on his past performances.

Shumenov is slow and fights in a robotic manner. The only way he beats Hopkins is if Hopkins gets old on Saturday night. But Shumenov will not beat a fighter like Stevenson and definitely not a fighter like Sergey Kovalev. You have to remember that Shumenov was fought to a standstill twice in his battles with Gabriel Campillo in 2009 and 2010. Shumenov was beaten by Campillo in 2009, and then he beat Campillo by a controversial decision in 2010. Campillo is the level where Shumenov is at, and he’s not going to be able to compete with Stevenson if he gets past Hopkins on Saturday night.

Hopkins was hit a lot in his last fight against Karo Murat last October. Hopkins got the win, but he was hit enough to show that he’s starting to deteriorate. Shumenov will be able to land as well on Saturday. The only question is will Hopkins throw enough punches to win a decision, because Shumenov will be there to be hit.



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