Hopkins vs. Pascal – Still no undercard picked out for this December 18th fight

By Boxing News - 10/04/2010 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: The December 18th fight between 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins ((51-5-1, 32 KO’s) and World Boxing Council (WBC) light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1, 16 KO’s) still doesn’t have an undercard to go along with this fight. You have to wonder who they’re going to lump with this fight. Likely, it will be a few Canadian prospects, but hopefully someone decent like middleweight David Lemieux or someone of that caliber.

As or the Hopkins-Pascal fight, this seems like it could turn out to be a dull affair if Hopkins fights the way he did in his last two fights against Enrique Ornelas and Roy Jones Jr. In both of those fights, Hopkins looked sluggish and seemed to need frequent rest breaks before he would be able to start punching again.

It’s hard to imagine Hopkins being able to beat a speedy fighter like Pascal, even though the Canadian based fighter is badly flawed and very beatable. It’s just that Hopkins appears to have deteriorate to the point where he doesn’t have what it takes to beat a fighter like Pascal.

With his punch and grab technique and his flopping around after getting hit with low blows or head butts, I don’t think Hopkins is going to be effective using those techniques to spoil his way to a victory. For Hopkins to win, he has to slow the fight down to a crawl and hope that he can keep Pascal pinned to the ropes fighting on the inside for the entire fight. I can’t see Pascal being that stupid and lazy to let himself be pinned and mauled.

Unless a fighter voluntarily decides to fight like that, I think Hopkins is going to find himself having to actually fight Pascal if he wants to beat him. When Hopkins goes to land a shot and then immediately follow it with a customary grab, I see Hopkins getting tagged hard on the way in and being foiled. He may still be able to grab Pascal, but he’ll have already been hit hard on the way in.

Also, Pascal won’t just let Hopkins maul him. He’ll break free and probably give Hopkins a lot of problems with his hand speed and power. I think Pascal is going to make Hopkins look old. This won’t be Hopkins beating Kelly Pavlik and proving people wrong. Pascal isn’t Pavlik, and this is an older Hopkins. He’s not the same fighter he was back in 2008. That Hopkins is gone.



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