By John Dower: In the latest boxing news, undefeated WBA/WBC/WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs) is predicting a victory over 43 year-old veteran Bernard Hopkins (48-4, 32 KOs) in their April 19th mega-bout at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Calzaghe, 35, had this to say to Setanta Sports: “He could bring a couple of his bodyguards into the ring and he’s still going to get done.” The prediction struck me somewhat of a young Muhammed Ali, whom would often make predictions about his victories.
To be sure, Calzaghe seems to be the one in the driver’s seat in this matchup, for Hopkins has shown little in the way of offense in the past few years that could come close to the high punch output of Calzaghe, who typically throws between 800-1000 punches per fight. This would seem to indicate that Hopkins has only two chances to try to beat Calzaghe: 1. Hopkins can try and load up with a big shot, and hope that he can hurt Calzaghe and finish him off with a flurry. 2. Hopkins can work on slowing the fight down by throwing a couple of punches and then immediately grabbing Calzaghe into a clinch to prevent him from getting his own punches off.
This is the style that Hopkins, now that he’s slowing down with age, has used in his recent fights against Winky Wright and Antonio Tarver. Before that, Hopkins has lost two consecutive bouts to Jermain Taylor in 2005, whose speed and volume punching had given Hopkins big time problems. Perhaps seeing that he needed to make changes to his style, Hopkins added much more clinching to his arsenal, which helped him immensely against both Tarver and Wright. Based on Hopkins’ recent success with this style, this would seem to suggest that he’ll likely continue to use the clinching against Calzaghe, knowing that it would be something that could slow the fight down to almost a crawl.
Calzaghe would then be forced to try and get in quick shots whenever there was a break, because Hopkins would likely be tying him back up with another clinch once there is a gap between them. However, before doing so, Hopkins will be sure to throw a one-two combination to score points. For a fighter that’s not accustomed to this style, it’s painfully frustrating to try and deal with, because handspeed, punch output, and offensive superiority generally goes out the window as the fight is turned into a punch & grab fight routine.
Calzaghe has already show that he is vulnerable to this style in his fight against Sakio Bika, so unless he learns from that fight, he’ll likely have problems against Hopkins. If Calzaghe thinks that Hopkins will try and match him punch for punch, he’s badly misguided, for Hopkins has never had much in the way of handspeed, and has mostly relied on getting close to his opponents and beating them in grueling battles on the inside. Calzaghe, even with his youth and offensive superiority, is no match for Hopkins on the inside. Calzaghe has never had to learn how to fight in that manner, due to him fighting most of his fights in Europe, where they generally fight each other at a distance.
To a lesser degree, I doubt that Hopkins will try and knock Calzaghe out, because he probably knows that if he loads up on his shots, trying to score a knockout, Calzaghe will only counter him with a flurry should Hopkins miss a punch. Also, Hopkins’ slow handspeed would open him up to getting countered on the way in if he were to try and land big shots, as Jeff Lacy tried in a losing effort against Calzaghe in March 2006.