Hopkins must find an answer for Dawson’s superior skills

By Boxing News - 04/07/2012 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: I’d say that WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO’s) is really up against it in his rematch with Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) on April 28th. This is not a good fight for the 47-year-old Hopkins. I don’t think he’s shot, but Hopkins has clearly slipped a notch since his win over former World Boxing Council light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal last year.

Hopkins is still good enough to beat most of the slower contenders, and some of the champions that don’t have a high work rate. But against Dawson, Hopkins is in hot water on April 28th, and there’s no real answer for him to fall back on to try and get the win. Hopkins can’t find a fountain of youth to stumble over to get his way through this fight. He’s past the point of no return, and he won’t be getting any younger. His current age is too old for him to beat a younger fighter with talent like Dawson.

Hopkins can’t rely on his puncher power to try and get the win because he doesn’t have huge power and he hasn’t knocked anyone out in eight long years. That’s a long time, and it indicative to the fact that Hopkins has lost something after moving up in weight from middleweight to light heavyweight. The things he could do at 160 is a lot different than what he can do at 175 against the bigger fighters.

The move up in weight may have saved Hopkins’ career, because it would have possibly drained him if he had to stay at 160 trying to make weight for each fight. At 175, Hopkins hasn’t had to worry about the weight, and up until he finally fought Dawson, he didn’t have to worry about the competition.

Dawson will be attacking Hopkins from the start, chasing him around the ring, jabbing and throwing combinations. Hopkins will likely be fighting like he did last October in his 2nd round no contest. Hopkins will look to throw and hold. That’s about all he can do. He’s got to go back to the textbook version of the punch and grab technique to try and get the win.



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