Hopkins vs. Dawson: Another prediction

By Boxing News - 10/13/2011 - Comments

Image: Hopkins vs. Dawson: Another predictionBy John F. McKenna McJack): Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda – The excitement is building for boxing fans as the fight between Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins (52-5-2-1 NC, 34 KO’s) and “Bad” Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO’s) is now just two days away.

Both fighters are confident and both are convinced that they will be victorious in the match up which shows promise of being an extremely interesting fight. The venue for the fight will be the Staples Center in Los Angeles and it will be an HBO Pay Per View (PPV) event.

Many boxing fans will putting their hard earned money down to watch the fight on Pay Per View just for the chance to watch a master in action, that being Bernard Hopkins. The 46 year old ageless wonder in this writers view wants to prove to the world that his victory over Jean Pascal last May in which he won the light heavyweight championship was not a fluke.

The amazing thing about Philadelphia’s pride and joy is that at the age of 46 “The Executioner” continues to evolve as a fighter. He studies and analyzes every fighter ahead of time and figures out a way to beat him. Bernard’s victory over Jean Pascal was just as much mental as it was physical. To say that Hopkins did a psych job on Pascal would be an understatement. I don’t know whether his doing the push ups in the corner of the ring was pre planned or not, but it was classic and very effective at undermining Pascal’s confidence.

In watching Dawson since his victory over Tomasz Adamek in 2007, he does not appear to be the same fighter. He seems to have lost the zeal which had promised to make him a great fighter in his own right. “Bad” Chad is still a very good fighter and he may pull off some surprises of his own come Saturday night. We can only wait to see which Chad Dawson shows up. Incredible as it seems, at 29 years old he does not appear to be the younger fighter. He has not lived up to the potential he showed several years ago.

In addition, Dawson’s frequent changes in trainers, is troubling. He has gone through Floyd Mayweather Sr., Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and most troubling of all his recent dismissal of Emmanuel Stewart last month. It is hard to fathom why before such an important fight Dawson would dismiss Stewart who is arguably the best trainer in boxing.
Dawson replaced Stewart with his former trainer, little known John Scully.

In making a prediction in this fight you are inclined to go with the known quantity, Bernard Hopkins. Dawson may surprise and come out with the fight of his life. But his unpredictability is bothersome. For that reason I’m predicting a decision win by Bernard Hopkins.



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