By Jason Kim: 47-year-old Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) is going to need to find the fountain of youth by April 28th when he fights a rematch with Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) at the Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hopkins dodged a bullet last time he fought Dawson when Hopkins hit the deck after falling off the back of Dawson after a missed right hand from Hopkins.

The fall injured Hopkins’ left shoulder badly enough for the fight to be halted. In the end. Hopkins was able to appeal the TKO 2nd round loss and have it changed to a no contest with the World Boxing Council and the California State Athletic Commission. However, a second injury by Hopkins that requires him to bow out of another fight with Dawson may not get the same results, so hopefully Hopkins can make it through the fight without hitting the canvas from an injury.

Hopkins is going to have to try and find some youth here, because contrary to what Hopkins’ fans have been saying about how sensational Hopkins looked last time out against Dawson, I think Hopkins didn’t look good at all and was heading for a loss. That was one fight and maybe Hopkins was over-trained and/or starting slowly. But what I didn’t see in this fight compared to Hopkins’ two fights against Jean Pascal was the physical size and strength needed for Hopkins to compete with Dawson.

Hopkins was smaller, slower, weaker and fighting tentatively. It didn’t look good for him and Dawson was motivated to the point where he was fighting with a little bit of anger in the fight. Had the bout gone further, I think Hopkins would have fell well behind in the fight to where he would have needed a knockout to win.

Hopkins is going to have to look fresher and younger than he did last time for him to beat Dawson because he looked his age in that fight.