By Jeff Aranow: Joe Smith Jr. (22-1, 18 KOs) says his goal for tonight’s fight is to pressure the 51-year-old Bernard Hopkins (55-7-2, 32 KOs) from the outset and look to make him look like an old man when he gets inside the ring with him in their fight at the Forum in Inglewood, California.
Smith Jr. wants to fight the winner of the Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward rematch. The best way to make that happen is to beat Hopkins and beat him in style by knocking him out. Smith Jr. wants to send Hopkins into retirement off of a knockout loss.
Hopkins hasn’t fought in two years since his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision defeat to Kovalev in 2014. Smith Jr. says was taking punishment from Kovalev in the 12th round of that fight. He feels that Kovalev had Hopkins hurt in that fight, but he didn’t step on the gas to get him out of there for whatever reason.
Smith Jr. isn’t going to let Hopkins off the hook in the same way. He plans on knocking him out if he gets him hurt along the way.
Hopkins vs. Smith Jr. will be televised on HBO Championship Boxing. The start time it as 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT. The co-feature bout is WBO cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (10-0, 9 KOs0 defending against Thabiso Mchunu (17-2, 11 KOs). This is a good fight for Usyk’s first defense of his World Boxing Organization title, which he won last September with a 12 round decision win over Krzystof Glowacki.
Smith Jr. said this to Fightnews.com about what he plans on doing against the 51-year-old Hopkins tonight:
“Hopefully I can wear him down and make him look like an old man,” said Smith Jr. about Hopkins. “Hopefully I’ll be the first one to stop him. Whoever is picking me to win has the right idea. It’s good to be underestimated and then come out on top.”
Just like the times that Hopkins fought Chad Dawson and Kovalev, he talked a great game ahead of the fights, and came across like he was the superior fighter before he fought both of them. However, when Hopkins got inside the ring with them, he didn’t have the youth, power or the boxing skills to get the job done. Dawson and Kovalev beat Hopkins by wide 12 round decisions.
Hopkins was injured in the first fight against Dawson. Some boxing fans think Hopkins was trying to get a disqualification win over Dawson in the first fight. The fight was ruled a no contest due to Dawson picking Hopkins up and dumping him on the canvas where he fell on his left shoulder and injured it.
Smith Jr. still looks like a pretty raw fighter despite having lots of punching power. He doesn’t move smoothly in the ring, and he’s very easy to hit. Smith’s hand speed is less than awe inspiring. He’s just a young 27-year-old fighter with more punching power than most guys in the 175lb division. It’s still impossible to know how good Smith Jr. is because he’s only fought one good fighter during his career in Andrzej Fonfara, who he stopped in the 1st round last June in Chicago, Illinois.
Fonfara got careless inside the ring and he paid a heavy price by getting knocked out quickly by the heavy-handed Smith Jr. Fonfara was knocked down twice in the round. The first knockdown was from a right hand from Smith Jr. Fonfara never saw it coming, and he was badly hurt by the shot. From that point on, Smith Jr. could have hit Fonfara with anything and he would have knocked him out.
Unfortunately for Fonfara, Smith Jr. went after him and didn’t miss a punch in knocking him down almost immediately for the final knockdown of the fight.
“The last round of that fight he took a beating,” said Smith Jr. about Hopkins’ loss to Kovalev. “For the most part Kovalev beat him around. Hopkins took some punishment but not too much.”
Despite having a huge advantage in punching power and youth, Kovalev mostly boxed Hopkins rather than pushing for a knockout. Kovalev probably could have scored a knockout of Hopkins if he’d tried hard to get him out of there. Kovalev was too respectful of Hopkins, and he let the fight go the whole distance when he didn’t have to.
Some boxing fans think Kovalev showed Andre Ward the same kind of respect in their recent fight after knocking him down in the 2nd round. Kovalev should have focused on trying to finish Ward off in the next round, but he instead fell into the same pattern that he did with the Hopkins fight by choosing to box Ward. That was a mistake obviously.
Kovalev’s best asset for both fights was his punching power and his aggression and he failed to use both. Smith Jr. can improve on the mistakes that Kovalev made against Hopkins by pressuring him immediately and forcing him into a dog fight.
At 51, Hopkins isn’t young enough for him to win that type of fight. Hopkins needs the fight to be fought at a slow pattern where he lands pot shots, and then moves to the outside. This is how Hopkins beat Kelly Pavlik. He fought him using an in out attack. Pavlik wasted time by throwing simple jabs and looking to land 1-2 combinations. Pavlik would have been better off if he’d jumped on Hopkins and unloaded on him with sustained flurries. For some reason, Pavlik never attempted to do that. He failed to adapt his game plan once it was apparent that he was losing the fight. Smith Jr. at least has the ability to look at previous Hopkins’ opponents to see where they went wrong and to improve on their mistakes. Whether Smith Jr. can do so is the big question.
Hopkins will likely have the hand speed and mobility advantage against Smith Jr. tonight, as well as the vast experience advantage. Smith Jr. has to use his main assets for him to win tonight. He’s not going to win if he lets Hopkins slow the fight down to a crawl like he did against Pavlik.