By Jim Dower: 46-year-old Bernard Hopkins weighed in at 174.9 for Saturday’s fight against World Boxing Council light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada. Hopkins came in overweight on the first weigh-in attempt, but after one hour he was able to shed the excess pounds and make the fight.

For his part, Pascal weighed in at 174.8, thus making weight without any problems. The fight is a rematch of their bout last December which was scored a 12 round draw. The WBC ordered a rematch between them and HBO badly wanted to show them again after their previous fight brought in good ratings for the network. Hopkins wants to make history by beating Pascal and becoming the oldest fighter to ever win a world title.

If this was a busier fighter he was facing, Hopkins might not have the youth to get the job done. However, Pascal doesn’t throw a lot of punches and tends to tire out in the later rounds. This gives Hopkins a great chance of winning the fight by capturing the later rounds. Pascal has problems on the inside and that’s where Hopkins excels. He’s likely going to try and get close and keep Pascal fighting at close range as much as possible on Saturday night.

Although Hopkins has promised to throw more punches and have a more crowd pleasing style in this fight compared to his recent bouts, it’s not likely to happen. Hopkins is one of those fighters that tend to maul his opponents on the inside by using wrestling, a lot of leaning and short punches to have his way. Pascal has almost no inside boxing skills and will struggle unless he can move around and stay away from inside exchanges and wrestling.