Bernard Hopkins Has Three More Fights With HBO, and Wants Top Opponents

Bernard Hopkins told Lem Satterfield that he has three fights on his HBO contract, including his May 21 fight with Jean Pascal. Hopkins expects to win, and then likely face Chad Dawson in the fall, and then hopes to meet some top super middleweights after that.

Hopkins, 46, is looking to become the oldest man to ever win a major title in boxing, and making it better is that it's a legit championship and not just an alphabet soup paper title. Hopkins went to a controversial draw in December with Pascal, who is nearly 20 years his junior.

Dawson fights Adrian Diaconu in the May 21 co-feature, his first fight with the legendary Emanuel Steward leading his training. "Bad" Chad has been very quiet since an August 2010 loss to Pascal, and though there was a time when Hopkins-Dawson was the fight to make at light heavyweight (at least by the perceived best in the game, and as sort of a passing the torch possibility), the fight never got close to happening before. Hopkins stated in the past that nobody wanted to see Chad Dawson, but recently came to the conclusion that he's not going to get really big fights, and a Dawson fight on HBO would be about as good as it gets, assuming both win on May 21.

Beyond that, Hopkins mentions Lucian Bute and the eventual winner of the Super Six for 2012 fights. Can you imagine a possible Hopkins-Andre Ward fight if both continued to win? Talk about passing the torch. And no, that's not a continued "pimping" of Andre Ward, it's just that stylistically, if Ward reminds me of any modern great, it's Bernard Hopkins.