Who should Hopkins face next?

By Boxing News - 03/12/2013 - Comments

hopkins452By Thomas Cowan: Last Saturday, as I predicted, Bernard Hopkins defeated Tavoris Cloud, a man 18 years his junior, to break his own record as the oldest ever champion. At 48 years old, Hopkins is older than Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Sven Ottke and Chris Eubank who are all long gone, but the Executioner somehow remains at the top.

How a small minority still don’t rate Hopkins and dismiss his incredible achievements is beyond me. Hopkins is 50 in 2015 and surely can’t have too many fights left, so who should he face next?

I don’t see Hopkins moving down to super middleweight as some fans have been suggesting he should. Bhop doesn’t want to face Andre Ward, I don’t see Arthur Abraham wanting to fight him and I don’t fancy Hopkins chances against Carl Froch or Mikkel Kessler. As incredible as Hopkins’ achievement is. the guys at 168 are a lot better than Tavoris Cloud.

Hopkins could try and avenge his defeat against Chad Dawson but Dawson seems to have his number so I don’t think that‘s an appealing fight for Hopkins. That leaves WBA champion Beibut Shumenov or WBO champion Nathan Cleverly. I think Hopkins would beat Shumenov, who I think if the same sort of level as Cloud. That seems like a decent fight to me but I’ve only heard Hopkins talking about facing Cleverly. The Brit is also very interested in the fight and will be even more interested now Hopkins has said he’s prepared to go to Britain to face him.

Cleverly fought Joey Vegas infront of 50,000 fans at the Millenium Stadium in 2007 on the Joe Calzaghe vs Mikkel Kessler undercard when he was an unknown 20 year old working his way up. Cleverly has made no secret about wanting to return there as the main attraction and has tried to Carl Froch into stepping up to light heavyweight and fighting him in Cardiff in a huge all-British showdown. Froch made it clear that he has unfinished business at super middleweight and that Cleverly is not in his immediate plans, so the Welshman has turned to Hopkins for the big fight he craves. I don’t see any reason this fight can’t be made because both fighters will fancy their chances and both will get a huge payday.

Although Cleverly hits pretty hard, I don’t think he has the power to knock Hopkins out because Cleverly doesn’t hit as hard as Jean Pascal, who Hopkins dealt with pretty well. Cleverly’s only option would be to try and outwork the veteran American. If Hopkins fights smartly like he did on Saturday night he’ll be able to stop this tactic and win a decsion. However, at 48, every time Hopkins steps in the ring there’s a risk he’ll be a shadow of the fighter he was in his last fight because the body can change that quickly.

If I was Hopkins I’d be happy with what I’d achieved and retire but I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening. I expect to see him fighting a WBO/IBF unification bout later in the year against a Brit who was only 1 when Hopins made his professional debut in 1988.



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