By Dan Ambrose: 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins (51-5-1, 32 KO’s) wants to become one of the oldest fighters to capture a title in his fight against WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1, 16 KO’s) on December 18th at the Pepsi Coliseum, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. Hopkins is looking to turn back the clock to a time when he was still able to shine and look impressive. Sadly, Hopkins hasn’t really looked impressive for two long years, although he hasn’t lost since Joe Calzaghe defeated him back in 2008. Hopkins didn’t look all that bad in that fight despite all the flopping around he did. However, he really has looked slower in his last two bouts against Enrique Ornelas and Roy Jones Jr. in fights that he won by a landslide.

Pascal, 28, defeated Chad Dawson by a 11th round technical decision in his last bout in August. This was perhaps Pascal’s finest moment of his five year pro career, as he did everything perfect up until the 11th when he made the mistake of covering up while Dawson flurried on him. However, Pascal’s head collided with the head of Dawson at exactly the right moment in the round to shut Dawson down and get the referee to step in and stop the fight due to a terrible cut over the right eye of Dawson. But Pascal still looked sensational in the fight and has looked very good in two wins over Adrian Diaconu last year.

Hopkins is going to have problems dealing with Pascal’s head speed, because the Canadian based fighter isn’t someone that can easily be pushed into fighting on the inside against the ropes. This is where Hopkins likes to fight nowadays, with his clinching and grabbing of his opponents to seek out small rest breaks to recover and get his second wind.