Hopkins-Pascal 2: Bernard may come up short this time around

By Boxing News - 04/22/2011 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: 46-year-old Bernard Hopkins (51-5-2, 32 KO’s) may have missed out on his best chance of beating World Boxing Council (WBC) light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1-1, 16 KO’s) last December in his 12 round draw. That was a fight that Hopkins could have won had he not been knocked down two times early in the fight. All Hopkins had to do was stay on his feet and he would have won, but his chin betrayed him and he went down when he got hit hard a couple of times.

Now the aging Hopkins is getting a do over by the WBC, and will get a rare second chance while Chad Dawson waits in the wings to face the winner of the Hopkins vs. Pascal 2 fight, as long as Dawson beats his opponent Adrian Diaconu, who he faces in the undercard of the fight. The fights will be taking place in Pascal’s home country at the Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Hopkins was able to outwork Pascal last time out by pressuring him and throwing a lot of short choppy punches. The shots weren’t big or particularly fast but instead they just never stopped coming. It was like watching Andre Ward fight. Hopkins kept coming forward and letting his hands go and getting in close with Pascal to beat him on the inside. Pascal seemed to fade as the fight wore on into the later rounds. However, because of his good work in the first four rounds, Pascal was able to get at least a draw out of the fight. However, this time around I expect Pascal to be much busier than last time out, knowing that the only way to beat Hopkins is by out-working him with constant shots. Pascal can’t beat Hopkins by staying on the outside and landing pot shots. That would only work if Pascal was light on his feet enough to stay out of the way of Hopkins. Pascal doesn’t have the stamina to play hit and run for 12 rounds and will instead have to focus on beating Hopkins by throwing a lot of fast punches the same way that Joe Calzaghe defeated Hopkins in 2008.



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