Witter vs. Hopkins On March 22nd

By Boxing News - 01/16/2008 - Comments

World Boxing Council light welterweight champion Junior Witter (36-1-2, 21 KOs), tired of calling out Ricky Hatton and subsequently being ignored for his efforts, had decided to bide his time and take on the undefeated Demetrius Hopkins (28-0-1, 11 KOs) on March 22nd, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hopkins, 27, is a light-hitting inside fighter, whom has mostly fought lower echelon opposition up until now. His style it would seem clashes with that of Witter, a fast outside fighter with a style that seems like a combination of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Roy Jones Jr. Of the junior welterweights, many people consider Witter, 33, to be far and away the best of the bunch with only Hatton coming remotely close to him in overall talent.

However, Witter has it all as a fighter – speed, power, foot movement and defensive skills – and will be a very tough obstacle for Hopkins to try and deal with. For his part, Hopkins is mostly a plodder type fighter, one that tries to walk down his opponents, while hitting them with hooks to the body and head. He fights well on the inside, preferring to stand and trade the entire fight against his mostly shorter opponents.

At 5’11”, Hopkins will have a four-inch height and reach advantage over Witter. However, Hopkins will negate nearly all of it by trying to fight Witter on the inside. It’s a style that will likely prove ineffective against the blazing handspeed of Witter, as he normally doesn’t stay in close for too long, and even when he does, he’s hard to predict, throwing punches from all angles. For that reason alone, Witter is tough to fight, as you never know where his punches are coming from, and they’re also hard to track because of his speed. Witter especially good when the fight is out of control with both fighters throwing flurries, as his punches generally get there first.

In his last bout, Witter took out Vivian Harris in an impressive 7th round TKO on September 7th, 2007, a bout in which many people had predicted that Harris would win. However, he never had a chance against Witter, as he dominating him throughout, knocking him down a couple of times in the process. In contrast, Hopkins is much slower and weaker than Harris, and will have to depend on out-landing Witter if he hopes to win the fight. It won’t be easy, because Witter doesn’t stand in front of his opponents, and it’s usually him that throws and lands more punches than his opponents.



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