By Dan Ambrose: Hopefully WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) has been working hard on his conditioning for his fight against former light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) on October 15th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Dawson already has revealed how he plans on going about getting a win over the 46-year-old Hopkins and that’s by throwing over 1000 punches in the scheduled 12 round fight. Although Dawson has never been fighter to throw a lot of shots in his fights, he’s young enough, smart enough and talented enough to actually do that.

The only thing that stands in the way of Dawson throwing over 1000 punches in the the fight is Hopkins, and that’s because he has habit of grabbing his opponents after he throws shots. Dawson won’t be able to throw one half of that amount if Hopkins is able to get in close to clinch and wrestle all night long. The old punch and grab technique is a tried and true method for slower and/or older fighters to compensate for a lack of speed or stamina to beat younger fighters.

This is why it’s important for younger guys like Dawson to understand this and try and work out a plan where he can minimize the amount of times that Hopkins is allowed to grab and tie him up. If Dawson was a good inside fighter, then it wouldn’t be a problem because he would work his way out of a clinch or inside fighting battle.

However, Dawson isn’t a great inside fighter and will have to try and avoid letting Hopkins grab him with his glue-like arms as much as possible. Dawson has great wheels and fast hands. This should enable him to keep Hopkins from getting a hold of him too often. You can’t keep Hopkins off you the entire fight, because he’s so good at grabbing, but Dawson can minimize that by throwing a lot of shots and using a side stepping motion to get out of the way of Hopkin’ strategic charges.