Bernard Hopkins vs. Chad Dawson: Why Not?
By Anwar Jamison (18-Dec-2009)

With a Danny Green vs. Bernard Hopkins fight looking more and more likely, Anwar Jamison takes a look at what would be a much more meaningful fight, and why it doesn’t seem to be happening.

According to Ring Magazine, Chad Dawson is the No. 1 rated Light Heavyweight boxer in the world.  Bernard Hopkins is the No. 2 rated light Hhavyweight in the world.  HBO is reportedly holding an April 1 date for Chad Dawson, while his trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad has mentioned March as an ideal time for Dawson’s next fight.

Bernard Hopkins was scheduled to fight Roy Jones in an overdue rematch on March 13^th, before Jones was knocked out by Danny Green.  Conventional wisdom would suggest that Hopkins and Dawson should be fighting some time around March or April.  However, it’s not happening.  Why not?

When Dawson wasn’t on Hopkins’ radar last year, and he fought Joe Calzaghe, it made all the sense in the world.  Few complained that Calzaghe wasn’t a true light heavyweight because it was a good fight for boxing. Dawson was still working his way up and taking care of Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver. If Hopkins is not going to fight Dawson, at least he should be fighting someone that makes sense for both boxers, the sport of boxing, and the fans.  His problem is, there isn’t really another fight that makes sense.

Now, we get the latest statement from Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer regarding Hopkins’ next fight: “There was HBO being interested in Chad Dawson and Paul Williams fights,” continued Schaefer, “There was (Tomasz) Adamek, there was Lucian Bute and there is Danny Green. So it’s a pretty long list. So Bernard, what he wanted me to do was to evaluate just how realistic the various options are. So that’s what I’ve been doing, as well, the last few days. So here we go.

“Jones and Trinidad, I don’t think are realistic. Adamek, HBO has no interest in that fight. So that eliminates that,” he explained. “Then you have Paul Williams. [Williams’ promoter] Dan Goossen called out Bernard. But the issue there [is] the weight. Bernard is not going to be able to go lower than 175 pounds; maybe give or take a couple pounds. So that eliminates Paul Williams. Chad Dawson is living in a dream world and I think he should keep on dreaming about the potential Hopkins fight. I wish him sweet dreams. So that one is eliminated as well.”

Schaefer adds, “So then we basically have two guys; we have Bute and Green. And these are the two names we’re focusing on in the last two days.”

Really?  OK, so he explained away the Paul Williams fight because of weight, and HBO’s not interested in Adamek, but that’s the best he can come up with to explain why Hopkins won’t fight Dawson?  How is Dawson living in a dream world?  Because he wants to fight the No. 2 Ring Magazine fighter, which is the only way he can be recognized as The Ring Magazine champ?  At least if he just accused Dawson of being a boring fighter or something, it would have at least been an attempt at making an excuse, but he didn’t even offer one.

It seemed that Green’s knockout of Jones had made this fight a no-brainer.  It can be argued that Bernard Hopkins deserves to be able to choose not to fight a guy like Dawson.  At this stage of his career, and everything he’s giving to the sport of boxing, that’s understandable.  But when you see a performance like the one he put on against Kelly Pavlik, who hasn’t recovered yet, it makes fans crave moments like these.  The Hall of Fame boxer nearing the end of his run, against the No. 1 boxer in the division.

When fans were clamoring for Floyd Mayweather to fight one of the other top stars in his division, he still fought Oscar De la Hoya and Ricky Hatton.  Regardless, what anybody says in hindsight, they were still fights that people wanted to see.  That wasn’t the same as fighting Danny Green.

Fans can only hope, and Bernard Hopkins and his people can certainly decide who he fights, but a win over Chad Dawson would be another great achievement to add to Hopkins’ victory lap.  For Dawson, it would make the changing of the guard feel complete, with him having defeated Tarver, Johnson and Hopkins, and we could then focus all attention on his fights with the other young fighters like Jean Pascal and Tavoris Cloud.

Too bad it doesn’t look like it will happen that way.

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