By Mark Vester
Bernard Hopkins plans to expose the style of WBO/WBC middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik in the same manner as Felix Trinidad. Hopkins, a big underdog, dominated Trinidad on the route to knocking him out in 2001. Hopkins collides with Pavlik at the catch-weight of 170-pounds on October 18 in Atlantic City on pay-per-view.
"Come October 18 you're going to see craftsmanship at his best. Styles make fights. When you have a guy who fights coming forward like Kelly Pavlik and you've got a counter-puncher like Bernard Hopkins, it's a little different from Roy Jones and Joe Calzaghe," Hopkins told Steve Bunce's Boxing Hour.
"I'm going to fight him with intelligence, with crafsmanship and experience and unless he's learning something new, he's going to fight as he has his last 34 opponents with 30 knockouts. You're not going to change something that's working."
Hopkins say the plan will be to use all of Pavlik's talents against him, like he did with Trinidad. He doesn't think Pavlik has enough tools to switch up his style during the fight, making him wide open for a systematic breakdown.
"My plan is to take what he does best and use it against him. Do remember about the awesome left hook Felix Trinidad had when he was undefeated. What happened to that left hook? When a guy has a bullet in the chamber and he has one and he doesn't have the other seven. I don't know what kind of gun he has," Hopkins said. "With anyone else he might not be in trouble. With Bernard Hopkins you need more than one bullet in the chamber."
"That's what the outcome is going to show the world. They'll say: 'Wait a minute, did he just systematically take his most important weapon and use it against him?'"
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