By Aaron Klein: Usually what a fighter says is tuned out by boxing fans and the larger public the moment that they lose relevance, like for instance when they’re no longer successful in the ring. In the case of former middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins (48-5-1, 32 KOs), who has lost three out of his last five fights, we may be seeing a shining example of just that taking place. At 43, the old skills, speed and power are on the decline, and the energy and vitality that made Hopkins so good in the early of his boxing career now seem to be on the wane, gone perhaps forever.

When his mouth roars, it doesn’t hold the kind of power that it once did before he started losing with great regularity. Now, going into his fight against the young, 26 year-old, unbeaten, power-punching Kelly Pavlik, who has stopped 30 of his 34 opponents, it’s hard to keep from erupting in laughter to hear Hopkins still making bold statements. None of what he says passes the believability test, because there’s nothing backing it up anymore, no credibility to buy into what he says anymore. So when he says things like, it’s going to be bloodbath, I don’t know whether to laugh at Hopkins or feel pity for him, because if he truly believes in what he says, and it’s just saying them to try and sell more tickets, then he’s hopelessly deluded and should seriously consider retiring at once.

Indeed, it’s sad to see Hopkins sticking around the sport for this long, as I hoped that he would have retire long before and gone out on the top of his game while he still could. He has no reason to be still sticking around, for he’s not like Joe Calzaghe, still young enough and fighting well enough, to be staying in the sport. He also doesn’t need the money anymore and certainly doesn’t need the risks that go with it in the way of all the punishment that he has to take in fighting.

At 43, whether he knows it or not, he’s taking a lot of risks by continuing to take on fights against top fighters like Pavlik. Maybe the fight against Calzaghe wasn’t as risky due to his more slapping punches, but against Pavlik, arguably the hardest puncher in the entire middleweight division, Hopkins is going to eat a lot of leather. This isn’t going to be a fight that Hopkins can clinch and wrestle his way to victory, although I think he’ll do a lot of both, hoping that it can slow Pavlik down and save himself from getting hit a lot. I don’t think it’s going to work, and I see him getting hit hard often. I do think there will be blood, but it’s going to be Hopkins’ blood, not Pavlik’s.

I think it is a positive that Hopkins is talking less trash talk for his fight with Pavlik, but I think he knows how ridiculous it would seem if he were to continue to talk trash, without having done anything to back it up for such a long time. You can’t go from having lost most of your last five fights and think that you’re going to convince Pavlik – or the boxing fans – that you’re going to make good on your wild boasts by stopping Pavlik. I think if Hopkins were to do that, Pavlik would look at him with a knowing stare, which seems to see through false fronts, and freeze Hopkins in his tracks and cause him to stop with the act.