By Dan Ambrose: 29-year-old challenger Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) says he isn’t worried about the mental games that WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) is trying to play with him as the two fighters approach their October 15th fight at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Dawson said this at Pound4pound: “Hopkins has no game plan. Just like he didn’t have a game plan for Joe Calzaghe. He doesn’t have a game plan. I think he’s going to go out and see what happens. See how I react to what he does… The fight should have happened three years ago. I’m the younger fighter.”

Dawson went on to point out that Hopkins had a tendency to not punch in his two losses to Jermain Taylor, and would only back up when Taylor was firing off combinations. Dawson says that his trainer Emanuel Steward is working with him to throw more jabs. That’s an area that Dawson has needed work on, as in the past he’s been more of a combination puncher and rarely threw jabs.

In his last fight against Adrian Diaconu, you could see how Steward had changed Dawson’s game, because he threw a lot of jabs in that fight. Some boxing fans, not used to seeing Dawson jab, felt the fight was boring to watch. However, Dawson was in command from start to finish and was able to dominate the shorter Diaconu using little more than a jab an occasional left or right hand.

Dawson revealed in the interview that he plans on moving up to the heavyweight division in three years and hopes to take on Tomasz Adamek, fighter he previously defeated at light heavyweight, for a title.