Pavlik's Stamina & Work rate will be the difference

Question Pavlik's stamina at 170 for 12 rounds cuz he didsn't look very good at 164 with Taylor

 

LOL, point out all the times that Calzaghe hit Hopkins with hard, meaningful punches and then maybe we'll have something to talk about. Otherwise nothing got taken out of ****. The old man was tired and distracted, a laymen could see that. Maybe Hopkins resented the type of fight that he was in - but none of that constitutes "alot being taken out of a fighter" and I think you goddamn well know it from your response.

 

Stamina wasn't the issue, he looked good in rounds 11-12 and got to Taylor.

 

First of all, I had Hopkins winning that fight. If you think that Calzaghe won 9 out of 12 rounds you have reinforced my assertion that you can't point out the hard, meaningful - or generally existant punches that were landed by Calzaghe. You don't win professional prizefights by bull rushing and flailing your arms about like a ****** hitting air and shoulders.

What do I think will happen in this fight? Well, to begin with Pavlik's power isn't going to amount to much if he can't land, let's start there. Hopkins is no easy target. Pavlik has a chance to win because Hopkins is old, but Pavlik has a chance to lose because Hopkins is extremely skilled offensively as well as defensively. If the Hopkins who fought Winky Wright shows up Pavlik will lose. That's the whole point of this line of discussion.

 

Pavlik has fought up and down the scale from under 154 to 170. More than one third of his fights were fought above the middleweight limit.

 

The real issues were 1) To much respect for Taylor. He was damn nearing hugging him at the end of several rounds. His corner even got on his ass about it. 2) Injuries to BOTH hands.

 

Hopkins didn't look good in the Winky fight. It was a sloppy fight with Hopkins doing a lot of holding and Winky running out of gas in the later rounds.

 

Excellent point, Hopkins did a masterful job of making the more active Wright waste energy. Give Hopkins the right opponent and he can do everything, including slashing their tires.

 

Never said he was and my prediction is similar to yours. You just asked if he fought at that weight before and I said yes, who he fought is another discussion.

 

:yep

Punch and smother ain't gonna work for 12 rds, specially not against Pavlik.

Pavlik UD most likely; outside (small) chance for a KO/stoppage victory possible.

I don't think the 170 limit is gonna hurt him too badly. He seemed comfortable in the Taylor fights, and it isn't his first venture up that weight range. I know he's been having difficulty making the 160 limit anyways.

Besides, he isn't really gonna have to bulk up too much to make those bombs of his effective.

A sad way for Bernard to go though :-(.

 

Yes, Winky was the right opponent. He was too small for 170 unlike Pavlik, and Hopkins still had to fight so ugly to win that Winky just said **** it.

 

The two big questions for me in this fight is whether Pavlik's stamina takes a hit from missing so many punches early and also whether Hopkins can get anything done after the 6th round.

Hopkins will make Pavlik miss early more often than Pavlik ever has in his career due to Hopkins fantastic defense. Hopkins has faded in almost every category, EXCEPT for his ability to make his opponent miss, especially early in the fight. As we all know, it takes more out of a fighter to miss his target completely than it does to land on the gloves. Pavlik loves to stay active and land on his opponents gloves, which eventually breaks down his opponent and opens them up later on in the fight. I think that Hopkins will make him miss completely quite a bit and what effect will this have on Pavlik's stamina, and also his mentality?

IF Pavlik can make it past the 6th round or so and still have enough energy to keep the punch level up (with power) and pressure Hopkins, then we very well may see Hopkins stopped late.

What is scary for Hopkins is that against Calzaghe, Joe was not punching at the same output as normal for him (probably due to age), and yet Hopkins was still having problems with him. Joe also was slapping even more than usual for him (which is saying a lot) and more than likely Pavlik's shots are going to be much more stiff and take more out of Hopkins as the fight progresses. Also, with Calzaghe being a southpaw, and squaring up quite a bit, he was taylor-made for Hopkins to land his sneaky right hand. This is the only weapon that Hopkins has left at this point and getting it home against the orthodox stance and 6 foot 2 inch height of Pavlik will prove to be very difficult.

The other thing that does not bode well for Hopkins is that he made a career out of having a decided height and general strength advantage at middleweight, but Pavlik will end up being considerably bigger than most of his previous opponents, even bigger than the Supermiddle Calzaghe. The only time Hopkins fought someone bigger than Pavlik would be against Tarver, but once again we saw Hopkins have success being a counter puncher against a southpaw and pretty much only land his right hand.

I like both fighters, but to me it is fairly obvious that Pavlik has just too much on his side, other than experience. He is younger, hungrier, stronger, better work rate, power and his time is now. Hopkins time has come and gone. I just hope that Bernard goes the full 12 rounds without getting seriously hurt, but realizes that it is time to hang them up.