Hopkins vs Dawson Rematch to Be Negotiated

Not that anyone's clamoring for it, necessarily, nor did the first fight succeed on any level, but Gary Shaw will look to begin negotiations for his fighter Chad Dawson to land a rematch with light heavyweight world champion Bernard Hopkins. From RingTV.com:

"I will be calling [Golden Boy Promotions CEO] Richard Schaefer this week to start a negotiation," said Shaw, referring to Hopkins' promoter. "Chad Dawson is ready, willing and able to fulfill his obligation to challenge Bernard Hopkins for the WBC world title."

Dawson (30-1, 17 KO) was briefly declared the new WBC titleholder after initially being ruled a TKO-2 winner over Hopkins on October 15, but that didn't last. The Ring never shifted their world championship to Dawson, and the WBC returned their belt to Hopkins just five days later. In the end, that all wound up fair, as the California State Athletic Commission recently ruled the fight a no-contest, which was expected for two months but didn't become official until the bureaucrats finally sat down together to go, "Yup."

Can you even really call it a rematch if it does happen? They didn't really fight the first time.

Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO) and Dawson drew a lousy gate at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and the HBO pay-per-view returns were minuscule to the point of being embarrassing, with just 40,000 total buys.

But to be fair on both counts, the fight never should have been in LA, and it wasn't originally meant to be -- Newark was the original destination, but Main Events pulled a power play with the Prudential Center to block the fight from happening there, which was petty, but also kind of funny.

And the fight never should have been on pay-per-view, either, but the HBO budget was strapped and they couldn't afford to put it on World Championship Boxing.

Personally, there will never be a time when I look at a Hopkins vs Dawson matchup and actively desire seeing the fight. I think it's a horrible style clash, don't think it has any hope of being exciting, and just don't find the fight attractive. But sure, I'd be perfectly content to watch it on a Saturday night on HBO. It's significant in the sense that they're two of the best fighters at 175.

If the fight cannot be made -- and there's a good chance Hopkins doesn't want to do it because it's not really worth it from a risk-reward standpoint -- then Shaw says Dawson would be willing to rematch Jean Pascal, or face IBF titleholder Tavoris Cloud. From a pure fight standpoint, I like both of those fights better than a Hopkins fight.