By Dan Ambrose: IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (54-6-2, 32 KO’s) says he wants to fight the top two 175 lb. champions Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev in 2014 before his 50th birthday in January 2015. Hopkins will be turning 49 next month, and he doesn’t have much time to set up and face both of these big punchers.
A loss for Hopkins to one of them will pretty much rule out a fight against the 2nd guy, especially if it’s a bad knockout loss for the soon to be 49-year-old.
“I think that it should be done before the summer of next year, and before I turn 50,” Hopkins said to RingTV. “The problem for them is that I like guys that come forward, and that people know that Bernard Hopkins does well with guys like them. They’re perfect for my style. They would fall right into my traps.”
Hopkins remembers his win over the lanky Kelly Pavlik from 2008, and probably feels he can do the same thing to Kovalev and Stevenson like he did against Pavlik. Those guys are much better punchers than Pavlik, and more skilled. Even if this way the 2008 version of Hopkins, I still think he’d be knocked out by Stevenson and Kovalev.
It’s admirable that Hopkins is talking about wanting to fight Stevenson and Kovalev, but there’s nothing in what Hopkins has left in his game that would lead one to believe that he’ll be able to beat either guy. I think it would be a major victory for Hopkins if he were to make it the full 12 rounds against these guys, because they hit so hard and Hopkins’ defense is no longer impregnable, as we saw in his recent win over Karo Murat. Hopkins gets hit now, and he’s no longer able to slip the shots that are thrown at him. These guys are a level above former Hopkins opponents Chad Dawson and Jean Pascal, and Hopkins is at the wrong point in his career to be fighting them.
If Hopkins just wants to cash out against them then it sounds go, but he really doesn’t have much of a chance to beat either of them in way shape or form. He can’t beat Kovalev or Stevenson by knockout, and he won’t be able to win a decision against them because they have so much better power than him.
Hopkins might not get a chance to fight either of these guys due to the HBO-Showtime obstacle. In that case it would be a lucky break for Hopkins because he could avoid inevitable knockout loss.
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