By Dan Ambrose: It’s been three months since WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) suffered a shoulder injury in his fight with Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) last October, and now they’re set to fight a rematch on April 28th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It sure is great they’re fighting again, but I’m kind of skeptical about Hopkins lasting the full 12 rounds, especially if things start going badly for him. We’ve seen Hopkins hitting the deck in fights against Joe Calzaghe, Roy Jones Jr. and the Dawson I fight with injuries of one kind or another, and it just makes you wonder if the 47-year-old Hopkins can hold up under the stress of a hard 12 round bout.

A 47-year-old is kind of like an old car with over 300,000 miles on the odometer. Things can and do break down all the time when you get an old machine with too many miles on it. Hopkins didn’t look good in the two rounds of action against Dawson last time out.

I realize that the fight was only into the 2nd round, but there was the look of old in Hopkins that I didn’t like. It was like having an old alarm clock that’s been barely working and any little bump is liable to put it out of its misery for good.

I give Hopkins a lot of credit for taking this fight, because he could ducked it by giving Dawson a step aside fee or simply vacated. Hopkins might have even just been able to go to the WBC and ask for permission to skip the fight, kind of like how Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. was able to do with his ordered bout against Sergio Martinez. But Hopkins, like a true warrior, showed courage by agreeing to fight Dawson again.

It’s nice but it still doesn’t change the fact that Hopkins is going to get spanked by Dawson on April 28th. I just hope Hopkins doesn’t come up an injury when and if things start going bad for him. I’m talking about one of those fight ending injuries where I guy pulls a muscle or has to quit because of some kind of ache in the joints.

I can’t think of any tricks that Hopkins can pull out of his toolbox to win this fight. It’s like the cupboard is bare. Hopkins might be able to go looking for some old tricks like the old punch and grab technique; the flop or the wrestling on the inside, but I can’t see any of them working against Dawson. They might work against a four round fighter like Jean Pascal but not against Dawson. It won’t be happening.