Will Hopkins’ anger work for him against Dawson?

By Allan Fox: The common wisdom in boxing is it’s never a good thing for a fighter to fight with anger, because they’re not thinking clearly and ended up making a lot of foolish mistakes. If you’ve watched the roundtable interview with 47-year-old WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins and his opponent Chad Dawson, you’ll note that Hopkins looked extremely angry. He also looked angry at the weigh-in on Friday.

Hopkins seems to be upset with all the boxing fans who are counting him out for this fight, and seeming him already as a beaten fighter. However, it’s hard to blame boxing fans and even Dawson for feeling this way, because Hopkins didn’t look at all good in the 2 rounds of action with Dawson last October, and the injury that Hopkins suffered left more questions that answers. In looking at the video, you can understand why some boxing fans would question whether the injury was legit because Hopkins didn’t appear to fall down hard on the shoulder. And it came during the point in the fight where things weren’t really going Hopkins’ way. He wasn’t in command of the fight and was being chased around the ring like someone that really didn’t want to be there.

Hopkins no doubt wants to prove boxing fans wrong and he wants to shut Dawson up by putting on a good performance tonight. If Hopkins fights with anger, will be able to sustain his rage for 12 rounds? Anger is an emotion that only lasts for a short period of time in fights. It gets replaced by worry, cautiousness and downright fear when things aren’t going right. Hopkins isn’t going to KO Dawson in the first couple of rounds, and that’s where things get messy for the 47-year-old Hopkins.

If he can’t get the job done early while he’s still angry, what is he going to do in the next 10 or 11 rounds when he’s fighting by just his wits? It’s not going to work out if he doesn’t have the physical tools to beat Dawson.

At 47, I think Hopkins no longer has the tool, and is going to have some problems in this fight proving people wrong like he says he’s going to. That would have worked against against another opponent that was more suited towards his style of fighting, but Dawson is all wrong for him. He’s not someone that’s going to be making a lot of mistakes and Hopkins won’t be able to hug him into submission.