By Jim Dower: During Friday’s weigh-in, WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins had an angry look on his face when it came time for his stare down with challenger Chad Dawson for their rematch tomorrow night at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Dawson, 29, was surprised that Hopkins even bothered to do the stare down, as he had failed to do it during their last press conference and Dawson figured he was too ashamed due to how things had went the last time they fought in October 2011. Hopkins, however, walked up to Dawson and looked like he wanted to throw down right then and there, even leaning forward to put his face within inches of Dawson’s face.

Dawson said this to RingTV “He [Hopkins] looked a little mad and upset today. But we’ll take care of that tomorrow night.”

With boxing, it doesn’t help to fight with anger unless you’re a knockout puncher and can harness that anger into a violent assault in the early going. However, Hopkins hasn’t scored a knockout in many, many years, and he’s got less of a chance to get a knockout than Dawson does. If Hopkins fights angry, he’ll only cause himself to over-swing with his punches and end up missing again and again. Or worse, Hopkins could leave himself open for the counter shots from Dawson and get beaten even easier than he would otherwise have lost.

Bernard Hopkins 173.5 – Chad Dawson 174.5
Seth Mitchell 241.5 – Chazz Withersppon 231.5
Shawn Porter 153.5 – Patrick Thompson 153.5
Mike Faragon 137.5 – Sergio Rivera 139.6
Lavarn Harvell 174.5 – Tony Pietrantonio 175.4
Julian Williams 154.5 – Hector Rosario 155.5
Phil Lo Greco 149 – Hector Orozco 149

Dawson said to RingTV “At first it looked like he didn’t really want to. But I think that with all the fans here, that he felt like he had to do it.”

Dawson has been saying for weeks now that Hopkins is afraid of him, and took the easy way out of their fight last October when Hopkins hurt his left shoulder after being dropped by Dawson in the 2nd round. Dawson figured that Hopkins would back out and refuse to do a face off for some reason. It’s good that he did it, but it might not mean anything if Hopkins fails to produce in the ring with a good performance.