Does anyone else find it amazing how radically different the tone of this fight is from the Calzaghe fight? It just goes to show what a tremendous self-promoter Hopkins can be when he plays the bad guy. The white boy statement fired up the Yanks and his overconfidence and prissiness in Britain REALLY pissed off the Brits. Around this time for his fight with Calzaghi, the board was full of hate going both ways, for Slappy Joe and Borenard Popkins.
Listen, Bernard Hopkins is an amazing fighter. He's the closest you can find today to a perfect fighter: great chin, great defense, great skills, great boxing brain and very good offense and power. He is one of the best ever and for 20 years no one has ever dominated him in the ring (only one fight he clearly lost). Joe Calzaghe is not amazing, but he is very skilled - a very good fighter. On the other hand, Kelly Pavlik is a good fighter, but very basic. His main asset is his power. So yeah, Pavlik may be fresh and active enough to beat a nearly 44 years old version of Bernard. But this isn't a match of two skilled artists like B-Hop-Calzaghe or B-Hop-Roy Jones. That's why people are much less excited.
Hopkins will do enough to survive by holding and running and throwing very few punches and after he loses the UD he will complain and say he clearly won.
There are plenty of people on this board who think it's dead certain that Pavlik is going to win. If Hopkins laid it on, I guaruntee you'd have a forum war. The only thing lacking is nationalistic pride.
I can see where those plenty come from. B-Hop is not a knockout artist, and he will have to win at least 8 rounds clearly in order to get the decision against the new "great white hope".
