Is Hopkins Avoiding Dawson?

By Boxing News - 05/01/2009 - Comments

dawson53603By Jason Kim: If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s fighters that avoid taking on other talented opponents. That’s why I’m wondering why Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs) is choosing not to fight International Boxing Federation light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (27-0, 17 KOs). It seems that Hopkins’, 44, name has surfaced recently in regards to all kinds of opponents from Tomasz Adamek, Felix Trinidad and now WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch, but the name that is oddly missing is Chad Dawson.

That’s the one name that should be on the tip of Hopkins’ tongue at this point, because Dawson is clearly the best light heavyweight in the division bar none, and since Hopkins is a light heavyweight nowadays, the natural thing for him to do would be to turn around and fight Dawson rather than other fighters like Trinidad, Adamek and Froch.

If it’s about money for Hopkins, I honestly can’t see him making more money by fighting those guys than he would get in facing Dawson. Sure, Trinidad was much more popular than Dawson in his prime, but Hopkins already beat Trinidad in 2001, and at this point there’s no fan interest in watching Hopkins give Trinidad another likely beating in 2009.

Adamek would be another bad choice because of the lack of fan interest in such a fight. However, if Hopkins is looking to end his career on strong note, he can’t go wrong by risking everything and taking on Dawson. It’s the type of fight that could only add to Hopkins’ career, win or lose, because he would stand to gain a great deal if he could pull off what would likely be a tremendous upset should he be able to beat Dawson.

And so what if Hopkins loses to Dawson? Hopkins has his age as the ultimate excuse to give for losing and most boxing fans would be sympathetic listeners to him, and would probably agree with any of Hopkins’ excuses that he might make about his age being the reason for his loss. Even though, I think Dawson would beat Hopkins at any point in his career, there would be no way of knowing that, so an excuse would go over better.

Lately, Hopkins has reportedly been said to be interested in fighting the British fighter Carl Froch. Frankly, I think that’s a crummy fight in comparison to Dawson vs. Hopkins. Don’t get me wrong; I think a Froch-Hopkins fight would be fabulous if that’s all we’re going to get out of him, but it’s not nearly as interesting as a Dawson bout, because Froch didn’t exactly impress all that much in his 12th round TKO win over Jermain Taylor last Saturday night.

Froch won, but gosh, he got hit way too much for a top level fighter. He beat Taylor, but then again there’s a lot better super middleweights and light heavyweights than Taylor as far as I can tell. If Hopkins can’t beat someone like Froch, then it really is time for retirement.

Anyway, I don’t see Hopkins having any problems with Froch, because I see the English fighter as a poor man’s version of Kelly Pavlik, who Hopkins completely dominated in a 12-round decision in October 2008. My hope is that Hopkins decides against fighting someone like Froch and does the right thing and steps up and fights Dawson, even it means getting beaten.



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