By Scott Gilfoid: Not much has been discussed about some of the advantages that the veteran Bernard Hopkins will be bringing into his fight with Kelly Pavlik on Saturday night. While Pavlik certainly has the upper hand in terms of youth, work rate, power and stamina, Hopkins has a number of things going for him that may lead to victory if he can put them all together against Pavlik. To start with, Hopkins is the bigger man, and is used to fighting at 175. Pavlik looked slow and lethargic in his second fight against Jermain Taylor at the 166 pound catch weight. How will Pavlik perform now that he has to come in even heavier at 170?

This is going to be a rare fight where Pavlik isn’t the stronger fighter, and it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to that. Sure, he’s the bigger puncher, but Hopkins punches almost as hard as him, albeit much less often. On the inside, Hopkins may be able to use his extra power to muscle the slender Pavlik around and get in shots that Pavlik, an outside fighter, won’t know how to defend against.

Pavlik will probably want to try and keep the fight on the outside where he can get good extension and leverage on his shots, but Hopkins probably won’t allow him to do that. Hopkins will crowd him, and smother Pavlik’s offense and take the power out of his shots.

Without the proper distance to get the maximum strength on his shots, Pavlik is no better than most fights. As we saw briefly in his fight with Gary Lockett early in the first round, Pavlik didn’t look good when he was at close range, unable to hit Lockett with a lot of power. However, Lockett allowed him to get some distance, at which point Pavlik began teeing off on him with power shots. Hopkins will likely elect to stay as close as he can to Pavlik to prevent him from throwing anything of substance. Hopkins is also good at taking away the jab of his opponents, slipping it and coming under with his own shots.

Hopkins did this effectively against Calzaghe, picking off his jab and then countering him with right hands to the head. If Pavlik loses his jab, he won’t be able to hide his right hand which he usually throws directly behind his jab. Without his jab, Pavlik is pretty much a one-armed fighter with only his right hand to depend on. Believe me, there isn’t a fighter out there than can beat Hopkins with only a right hand. It takes a lot more than that. Calzaghe was able to beat Hopkins, just barely, by throwing nonstop punches with both hands.

While it worked, according to the judges, Calzaghe took a lot of shots in the process and hardly looked like the winner at the end of the bout. Pavlik’s work rate is better than Hopkins, but nowhere near as close to that of Calzaghe. That tells me that Hopkins may be able to stay close enough in his punch output to get the nod from the judges in the end. As far as accuracy goes, this is a clear advantage for Hopkins.

He’s a dead aim with his punches and seldom misses. He’ll make the most of every opportunity presented to him by Pavlik and land the much cleaner shots. Whereas Pavlik will spend a great deal of time missing punches, getting out-boxed and wasting energy trying to wrestle with Hopkins on the inside. Eventually, I think the combination of the added weight, Hopkins better accuracy , better inside game, will wear Pavlik down enough to grind out a decision victory.