By Jason Kim: In calling out Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones Jr. lately, one name that was oddly left off the list by Bernard Hopkins was that of Chad Dawson (27-0, 17 KOs), the undefeated IBF light heavyweight champion who recently easily defeated champion Antonio Tarver by a 12-round unanimous decision on October 11th. In an interview with Steve Bunch on his Boxing Hour show today, when Dawson’ name was mentioned as a potential opponent for him, Hopkins said, “scrap Chad Dawson, because I have big fish to fry,” meaning Joe Calzaghe and Roy Jones Jr.

However, I can’t help but thinking that Hopkins is purposely choosing not to face Dawson, easily the best light heavyweight in boxing bar none. While I think both Jones and Calzaghe are great fighters in their own right, neither of them have the size or speed to compete with Dawson. Calzaghe and Jones may at one time come close to having around the same speed as Dawson, but they’re no longer at that level now that they’ve gotten older and are close to retirement.

Hopkins, 43, doesn’t come near to having the hand speed or work rate that Dawson possesses. Understandably, I can see why Hopkins would conveniently leave Dawson’s name off the list of potential opponents for himself, because Dawson is a whole different deal altogether in comparison to the aging Calzaghe and Jones, both of whom are nearing 40.

At 26, Dawson is just hitting his prime and is looking at dominating the light heavyweight division for years to come, long after Calzaghe, Jones and Hopkins retire from the sport. With blazing hand speed, great defense and a tendency to throw punches in bunches, this Dawson would figure to be the wrong kind of opponent for the aging Hopkins. It’s one thing to beat a tall, slow, skinny Kelly Pavlik, who was forced to move up from the middleweight division to make the fight with Hopkins at the 170 pound catch weight, but it’s a whole different thing altogether to fight a 6’3″, blazing fast, legitimate light heavyweight like Dawson.

This wouldn’t be a fight where Hopkins would be able to dominate with movement, hand speed or schemes in which he moves laterally to his right to keep from getting nailed with right hands from Dawson, because Chad moves much better than either Hopkins or Pavlik, and he’s capable of landing power shots with both hands, not just one like Pavlik. If Hopkins tried that with Dawson, he’d get nailed with long jabs to the head, and when he came rushing in to land his lunging hooks, he’d be met with a flurry of shots similar to the way he was countered by Jermain Taylor in his two losses to him.

Dawson, however, wouldn’t tire out like Taylor did in the later rounds and would continue to cause Hopkins call kinds of trouble as the fight winds down. More than likely, Hopkins will stay away from Dawson as long as possibly, working hard to try and get fights with Calzaghe and Jones. However, if neither of them go for a fight with him, which is probably what will happen, then I can see Hopkins perhaps reluctantly turning his attention to Dawson, arguably the best fighter of the bunch.

When that happens, you can count on Hopkins losing badly to Dawson, much worse than his two losses to Taylor. Dawson does everything much better than Hopkins, whether that be jabbing, hooking, moving or power shots. As I said before, Dawson is a legitimate light heavyweight, with a bigger frame and much better skills than Hopkins can ever hope to have.