By Dan Ambrose: It appears that soon to be 47-year-old WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) will be fighting Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) in a rematch after all.

Recently, the World Boxing Council ordered that Hopkins had to fight an immediate rematch with Dawson. This came shortly after the California State Athletic Commission overturned Hopkins’ October 15th second round TKO loss to Dawson, changing it to a “No decision.”

This was due to Hopkins falling down and injuring his left shoulder after falling on top of Dawson’s back in the second round and being shucked off by Dawson. The ruling made by referee Pat Russell to call it a TKO instead of a no decision always had a huge chance of being overturned, but it seemed logical that the WBC had to order a rematch because the fight had to real winner and it didn’t solve anything.

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer talked about Hopkins moving on and not giving a rematch to Dawson, and even Hopkins talked about wanting to fight IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute rather than fighting Dawson again. It seemed to some boxing fans that Hopkins was ducking a second fight against Dawson, as he didn’t look good in the short two round fight.

Hopkins said this on his twitter: “I never ducked no one. I want to fight Chad Dawson. I’m great in rematches with southpaws. I won’t fight [Andre] Ward. My next fight is against Dawson. Yeah, I want all the belts.”

It seems like a logical decision by Hopkins, because he really doesn’t have a lot of options available to him right now. Bute is looking to fight Carl Froch, Andre Ward or Mikkel Kessler. Ward already said he won’t Hopkins.

Kessler is busy fighting WBO super middleweight champion Robert Stieglitz in April, and then one of the former Super Six tournament contestants after that. Froch wants Bute or Kessler next. Hopkins can fight WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly next if he wants to, but that’s not an appealing fight because no one aside from hardcore boxing fans have ever heard of Cleverly in the U.S. Dawson really is the best option Hopkins has going for him if he wants to hold onto his WBC title. I doubt Hopkins could lure Arthur Abraham or Kelly Pavlik into fighting right now, and if he did take one of those fights, the WBC would likely strip him of his title.