By Eric Thomas: In an article on the Yahoo Boxing Blog, IBF light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson’s manager Mike Criscio doubts that Bernard Hopkins will fight Dawson, saying “Hopkins is afraid of Chad. I think if he goes into the ring he knows Chad will be way too quick for him and I think Chad will take him [Hopkins] out early.” Dawson and his team figure it’s more likely that Joe Calzaghe comes out of retirement to fight Dawson than Hopkins getting the desire to step up and face Dawson for his IBF title.

However, Criseo thinks that Hopkins could possibly change his mind about fighting Dawson if there’s pressure applied by the boxing media and HBO. As things stand, HBO is reportedly interested in seeing Hopkins fight Dawson, and so are many boxing fans on the net. However, even with HBO putting pressure on Hopkins, it’s doubtful that Hopkins will want to risk his legacy to come take on an fighter as young and as fast as Dawson.

This would leave Dawson a few other options, starting with fighting a rematch with Glen Johnson. Dawson fought Johnson last year and beat him in an exciting 12-round split decision. Although Johnson, including many boxing fans, is interested in the rematch, Dawson apparently isn’t.

A fight against Johnson isn’t a big money fight, as the first bout proved, and Dawson likely doesn’t want a tough fight that he’s almost guaranteed not to get paid well for. It’s hard not to see Dawson’s point, because Johnson-Dawson should be a PPV bout, but it wouldn’t be. Dawson would likely get paid little for a fight that would be a grueling war.

That’s why Dawson is looking at moving down to the super middleweight division if he can’t get Hopkins to show any interest in a fight. At super middleweight, Dawson would have a number of talented opponents to fight, with Jermain Taylor, Mikkel Kessler, Carl Froch, Andre Dirrell, Lucian Bute and Andre Ward leading the pack for potential fights.

The ideal good money opponents for Dawson would be Kessler and Froch. Both are good fighters, the type that would generate a lot of fan interest and would probably be fights that HBO would be interested in showing to the boxing public.

Although Froch and Kessler aren’t that well known to casual boxing fans, the diehard fans are well aware of both of them and would flock to see either fight in big numbers. As for Hopkins, it’s unclear what it would take to get him to fight Dawson.

At the end of the day, it might not be possible no matter what the numbers are that are thrown at Hopkins. However, it’s clearly the best available fight for Hopkins, because the boxing fans aren’t too interested in seeing Hopkins fight Tomasz Adamek or Felix Trinidad.

They might be up for Hopkins fighting Carl Froch, but that fight would still take a backseat to a fight with Dawson, because Chad is bigger, stronger and faster than Froch, and is also a natural light heavyweight. Froch, like Kelly Pavlik, would be at a disadvantage facing the bigger Hopkins.