Hopkins playing chess game?

[INFAMOUZ]

Here's the subtext of what I see happening right now: The fight Hopkins really wants is the winner of a Johnson-Tarver bout. However, everyone knows he also wants 20 defenses. Hopkins is going to be ambiguous about his next move so he can get better leverage. First he said on ********** that he thinks a Johnson rematch would be bigger than a fight with Tarver. He wants to bait Tarver into giving up his belts to fight Johnson. If Johnson accepts this fight with Glen Johnson on Dec. 18, (which he should because he's bankrupt and it's the best fight out there) Hopkins will immediately announce Howard Eastman as his opponent for January. Then he'll win that fight, keep his stranglehold on the middleweight belts, and tell Tarver, "Look, I got four belts, you got none, we're going to do this on my terms or not at all." However, if Tarver delays his fight with Glen Johnson, Hopkins is going to say that he still hasn't done anything worth moving up in weight for.

What Tarver should do is say, **** the belts, either Hopkins wants to fight or he doesn't. If he doesn't, Tarver can fight James Toney, he can fight a cruiserweight champion, or he can fight one of the super middleweight stars. The bottom line is a win over Johnson can only boost his status, and if he loses, he won't have any belts anyway.

My hope is that Tarver fights Johnson on Dec. 18, Hopkins scraps his mandatory, and starts preparing to bulk up for a fight at light heavyweight in 2005.

[mic573]

Hopkins belts won't mean nothing at 175 so he wouldn't be able to use his belts to gain leverage. If anything it would be his win over Delahoya that he would try to gain leverage with.