By Allan Fox: It’s now been four months since former two division world champion Bernard Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KO’s) has lost fought, and he currently has nothing scheduled for his next bout. It could be that the 47-year-old Hopkins won’t fight for the remainder of the year unless he can get something lined up soon.

Hopkins was beaten by Chad Dawson by a 12 round majority decision last April in a close fight. There was nothing be ashamed of for that fight, because Hopkins fought well. But he just didn’t have quite enough of a work rate for him to pull out the decision against the younger 29-year-old Dawson.

However, Hopkins did perform well enough to show that he would still be a huge problem for any other top fighter in the light heavyweight division. Hopkins can’t afford to set and wait for a big fight to plop down into his lap, because he’s really getting up there in age. He needs to go after one of the three other light heavyweights such as WBO champ Nathan Cleverly, IBF champion Tavoris Cloud or WBA champion Beibut Shumenov.

Those guys would jump at the chance of fighting Hopkins if he showed any interested. A fight between Hopkins and Cleverly would likely make Hopkins a lot of money because they could stage the fight in one of the large football stadiums in Wales and it would sell out, if Hopkins was interested in taking a chance at fighting in the UK.

It would be worth the risk financially, because Hopkins would get a big payday. Cleverly would be tough because he likes to throw a lot of punches, and that’s an area of weakness for Hopkins right about now because he doesn’t throw a lot of punches anymore. However, Hopkins could tie Cleverly up enough on the inside to reduce his work rate considerably in order to try and pull out a decision.

What you don’t like to see is Hopkins sitting idle for 8 to 12 months at this point in his career, because the chances are too high that he won’t be the same fighter once he finally does get back in the ring.