By William Mackay: Possibly still smarting from his 12-round split decision loss to Joe Calzaghe (46-0, 32 KOs) in April 2008, Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs) reportedly wants a rematch with Calzaghe to try and clear up the close loss between the two fighters. Unfortunately for Hopkins, Calzaghe closed up shop and decided to retire from the sport rather than give Hopkins his much needed chance for revenge. It doesn’t appear at this point that Calzaghe is going to be coming back now or ever, no matter how much money is offered to him.
That, of course, could change if something drastically where to effect his financial status, yet even then it’s highly doubtful that Calzaghe would opt to face Hopkins, who made the pre-fight difficult for Calzaghe with his constant gamesmanship that took place.
The big question is, why is Hopkins choosing to fight Calzaghe rather than Chad Dawson (27-0, 17 KOs), the IBF light heavyweight champion, and the fighter far and away considered to be the best fighter in the division by many.
That would seem like the logical move for Hopkins if he’s concerned with finishing his career on a strong note. Hopkins already has a feather in his cap with his recent 12-round decision over middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik in October. Beating Pavlik was great for Hopkins, but then again Pavlik isn’t a light heavyweight like Hopkins and had to come up in weight to fight him at 170.
Even then, Pavlik was at a weight disadvantage against Hopkins, who came into the bout weighing in the mid 180s. Hopkins, the bigger, faster and stronger fighter of the two, ended up having a surprisingly easy time beating Pavlik. However, beating Pavlik is nothing given his lack of size and speed.
It seemed obvious to me that Pavlik would lose because he’s built up his reputation against one good fighter in his career – Jermain Taylor – with the rest of them being fighters of average ability. Taylor made it easy for Pavlik by trying to slug with him. In hindsight, it was a dumb thing to do for Taylor and he ended up paying for it twice in losses.
As you can see, the win over Pavlik wasn’t all that special when you consider Kelly’s limitations. As for Calzaghe, Hopkins needs to give up on that idea and move on mentally past that fight. Sometimes a fighter just has to accept that they lost, own it, and then move forward and try to make the best of things with their career.
A win against Pavlik was a good start, but in reality not all that fair because of his size advantage over the smaller, slender Pavlik. Instead of facing middleweights, Hopkins, a light heavyweight, needs to fight the best fighter in his own division, and that would be Dawson.
Hopkins has already said that he doesn’t want to fight Dawson because he doesn’t want to take away from the sport of boxing by beating all the top young fighters in boxing. However, I have grave doubts that Hopkins could beat a fighter as good as Dawson.
Whatever the case, Hopkins can surely wait around for Calzaghe and hope that he’ll come out of retirement but he may end up waiting an awful long time and end up throwing away the little time he has left. I think Hopkins would be better served to move on and take a fight with Dawson. Sure, Hopkins will probably lose but he’ll get a lot of respect by facing a top light heavyweight with blazing fast speed, good size at 6’3” and with the ability to box circles around Hopkins.
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