By Jason Kim: Forty-four year-old Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KO’s) will have a stay busy fight on December 2nd against middleweight contender Enrique Ornelas (29-5, 19 KO’s) in a scheduled 10-round bout at the Liacorous Center, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hopkins, 44, is taking another middleweight opponent rather than a light heavyweight to try and stay sharp for his potential rematch with Roy Jones Jr. next year.

Hopkins has to win this fight, and Jones also has to do his part by beating Danny Green on the same night if Jones and Hopkins are to realize their goal of fighting next year. Jones, it would seem, has a much bigger worry than Hopkins, because Green is younger, bigger and a good puncher. He might be able to get Jones out of there if he connects with something big. That destroy the Hopkins match and take away Jones’ best shot at a big payday in quite some time.

Hopkins hasn’t fought in over a year since beating Kelly Pavlik last year in October. Hopkins could have had other bouts since that time, but has priced himself out by wanting too much of the cut with fighters like Tomas Adamek and Carl Froch.

In hindsight, Hopkins would have probably been better off making the fights happen with Froch or Adamek by agreeing to a bigger fee for his opponents because the money that Hopkins would have made for either Froch or Adamek has to be better than what he’ll be getting for the Ornelas fight. Hopkins has done nothing in an entire year and will have to settle for the little known Ornelas, a middleweight contender but not what that the casual boxing fans are familiar with.

This should be an easy fight for Hopkins. Ornelas doesn’t have much power and has been beaten by Sam Soliman, Bronko McKart and Marco Antonio Rubio in the past two years. Ornelas, 29, had a close fight with Rubio last year, but he wasn’t able to stay busy enough in the 12 round fight to get the decision.

Ornelas stopped Roberto Baro in the 4th round in July. There’s little doubt that Ornelas is going to be out of his league in the Hopkins fight and really, this fight should only be seen as a tune-up for Hopkins, because it’s not going to be competitive unless Hopkins injures himself.

Hopkins needs to make sure he looks good in beating Ornelas, because boxing fans will likely be using this as a gauge to determine whether to bother to see the Jones vs. Hopkins rematch next year. Hopkins would do best to try and get Ornelas out of there as quick as possible. Hopkins doesn’t need to worry about Ornelas having big power like Kelly Pavlik, so Hopkins can afford to take more chances than he did against Pavlik by slugging it out with Ornelas.

Even if Hopkins takes some shots from Ornelas, it will still make him look better in the eyes of boxing fans who will be more likely to want to see the Jones-Hopkins bout if Hopkins looks impressive offensively against Ornelas.