By Dan Ambrose: If WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1-1, 16 KO’s) wants to make 46-year-old Bernard Hopkins (51-5-2, 32 KO’s) look all of his age on May 21st, Pascal has to pressure Hopkins and force him to fight a lot harder than he did the last time. Pascal and Hopkins fought to a dull 12 round majority draw last time they fought in December.

Pascal made the mistake of fighting Hopkins the same way that Pascal had fought Chad Dawson months earlier. In the Dawson fight, which Pascal won by an 11th round technical decision, Pascal used movement and in and out attacks to score points and ultimately build up a big enough lead to get the win after the fight was halted due to a cut that Dawson suffered in the 11th.

However, this style was ineffective against the much busier Hopkins, because he was putting a lot of pressure on Pascal the entire fight and out-working him. By moving a lot and attacking only sparingly, Pascal ultimately let the aging Hopkins get plenty of rest breaks to recover.

Pascal needed to watch Hopkins’ fight with Joe Calzaghe and note that Hopkins was unable to fight hard for 12 rounds without flopping around on the canvas in what appeared to be moves to get breaks to recover. Pascal needed to set a fast pace against Hopkins and make him fight a lot harder than he wanted to.

This style of fighting isn’t what Pascal is accustomed to, but he’s going to need to adopt this style if he wants to beat Hopkins in the rematch. Moving around and fighting in brief spurts won’t get the job done against Hopkins. This kind of approach will be giving Hopkins plenty of rest for him to perhaps squeeze out a 12 round decision.