By Mark Vester
The news gets wilder when it comes to Bernard Hopkins. Out goes a rematch with Felix Trinidad, and in comes WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch. The fight makes little sense to the "legacy" of Hopkins. There is no revenge logic. Hopkins, who lost two fights to Jermain Taylor, already dominated Kelly Pavlik, the man who beat Taylor twice. Last month he wanted to go up to cruiserweight to fight IBF champion Tomasz Adamek. That fight fell through after Adamek refused a lowball offer of $500,000.
Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, told Dan Rafael that Hopkins is hunting for a fight with Froch. Hopkins is even willing to head over to England to fight Froch - and drop down to super middleweight to do it. Why is Hopkins, who always wants to have the edge, giving Froch every advantage? Because he knows that Froch is not technical enough to beat him. Hopkins would beat Froch seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Unless Hopkins really gets old, the fight would be repeat of Pavlik-Hopkins.
"Bernard Hopkins is interested to fight Froch. Why not? He just knocked out Jermain Taylor," Schaefer said. "[Golden Boy matchmaker] Eric Gomez spoke to [Froch promoter] Mick Hennessy and Mick is interested. They only want big fights. Bernard Hopkins is a big fight for them. What I have to do is discuss it with Bernard and HBO."
There are issues. Showtime has the option on Froch's next fight, and Hopkins is an HBO fighter. A fight much easier to make, against someone his own size, would be IBF light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson.
Dawson makes his HBO debut next Saturday in a rematch with Antonio Tarver. Hopkins danced around a fight with Dawson for the last twelve months. It's simple on why the fight is very dangerous for Hopkins. Dawson is too fast and too slick. Fighters like Adamek, Pavlik and Froch are not very quick with their hands or feet, they are not ring technicians, and they will come forward all night and allow Hopkins to counter them. Dawson is active, he knows how to move around the ring, his hands are fast and overall his physical gifts may be too much for Hopkins.
Dawson dominated Adamek [who Hopkins wanted] when the two met in 2007. Joe Calzaghe showed, even without major punching power, that Hopkins has trouble when speed is combined with a high punch output. Calzaghe made Hopkins look old, while Pavlik, stylistically similiar to Froch, made Hopkins look like a million bucks. Dawson is bigger and hits a lot harder than Calzaghe. Dawson is also a better technical fighter than Calzaghe. It spells trouble for Bernard, but if Hopkins really wants a big fight, a legacy fight, than the fighter he should face is Dawson.
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