Collins: Calzaghe would have always beaten Hopkins

STEVE COLLINS has echoed Joe Calzaghe's view that age will be Bernard Hopkins' downfall in their prestigious 'Ring' championship light-heavyweight affair in Las Vegas tomorrow night. 'Celtic Warrior' Collins, the Welsh prodigy's predecessor, said: "43 years is a very old man in boxing." At 36, Calzaghe, who dominated the super-middleweight division for 10 years running, is seven years younger. "Hopkins is making a mistake: Joe is too fit, too hungry," Collins said. "Hopkins is going to lose. Everything about the fight tells me that it's a win for Joe. "I'm the same age as Bernard Hopkins and I couldn't do it again no matter how much determination or how much belief I have. "But Joe needs that one big name fight and Hopkins provides him with that, so Joe's not complaining. "Even if I didn't start my own career in America and become U.S. champion over there; I have Mike McCallum and Nigel Benn on my record. "Joe doesn't have established fighters the Americans respect on his record, largely because they haven't been around. "But come Sunday morning he will have one - finally!" But he said Hopkins would have his excuses ready if he lost to Calzaghe, even though Collins thought Calzaghe would have beaten Hopkins even if the pair had met 10 years ago when Hopkins was "in his prime". "He'll turn around and say: 'I stayed around too long, I'm 43 years old, I would've beaten this guy in my prime, I took it because I thought I had one last fight left in me,' and that's so frustrating." Collins' path didn't quite cross with Calzaghe's back in the 1990s, and the Dubliner puts that down to the lack of star appeal the Newbridge man possessed - or failed to possess - back then. "Listen, Joe was in his early twenties or something at the time. I didn't know who he was," he said. "It seemed too early for him to be fighting for the world title anyway. Like it had come to soon. "I thought of him as another of those young guns saying they're 'this and that', and felt he wasn't ready. But obviously he showed he was ready. "The only opponent for me at the time was Roy Jones. We'd eliminated everyone else but unfortunately it never happened. "Joe wasn't on the radar screen at the time." His advice to Calzaghe at the Thomas & Mack Centre tomorrow night would be to "do what Joe does best". "Just overwhelm him - pressure, punches and make those 43-year-old legs suffer." And the battle over age has been taking place in Las Vegas as well with Hopkins playing down the age gap. "Joe is not a spring chicken, he's 36-years-old," said Hopkins. "In boxing numbers, 43 is old and 36 has got to be knocking on the senior citizen door. I am already in the senior citizen hall if it means anything."