By Eric Thomas: WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) has been looking great recently with his wins over a number of quality fighters in the light heavyweight division.

At 46, Hopkins has been able to turn back time and continue to fight at a high level that he did in his youth. However, it may be enough for him to beat challenger Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) on October 15th because Dawson isn’t just an average challenger. Dawson is arguably the best fighter in the light heavyweight division.

To be sure, Dawson’s stock has dropped off since his poor performance in losing to Jean Pascal last year, but that fight isn’t really a good indication of Dawson’s talent, because he’s generally a lot better than what he showed in that fight. When he did finally open up on Pascal in the 11th round, he Pascal reeling.

Luckily for Pascal, his head collided with Dawson’s, which caused Dawson to suffer a bad cut and the referee quickly stopped the fight without letting Dawson attempt to finish off a badly hurt Pascal.

Hopkins has done really well at getting his punches off first against his opponents in the last several years. For Hopkins, throwing first is really the important part of his game because he unusually rushes in the process of throwing and basically collapses on his opponent where he then starts with the inside mauling.

It takes a quick fighter with a lot of skill to dodge Hopkins or get away before he ties you up in prolonged energy draining clinches. The key here is to not let Hopkins grab. He’s not going to outwork Dawson, but he will limit what Dawson can throw by collapsing on him after throwing a shot. If Dawson can avoid Hopkins’ punch and grab attempts, he easily wins this fight because Hopkins isn’t a knockout threat and is really limited in terms of punch output.