Hopkins vs Clev' in 2013

[jamesmcdonnell]

FFS Hopkins will be 48 if they fight next year.
I am mildly embarrassed by this fight.
I absolutely love the Exectutioner, but to face up to him losing to Cleverly - which he will - leaves me cold.
Hope it never takes place.

Wouldn't make cleverly favourite. I doubt there was ever any real prospect of this fight happening, why would hopkins bother? They couldn't pay him e3nough to make it viable.

[jamesmcdonnell]

I think that Clev scores the upset.

An upset? NC should beat BH no problem.

Really? Based on which of his wins over world class fighters?

Hopkins may be 48, but he is still leagues of class above Nathan.

[JLP]

Maybe B-Hop fancies the idea of boxing outside of North America (Ecuador '94 was a long time ago). Maybe he thinks he could sell out a stadium over here. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

[deadpan]

I don't understand taffytoon's seeming bullishness in all this. Fair enough we can all agree to disagree, and that's part of the Boxrec magic, but I'm convinced that unless Father Time has finally decided to spike B-Hop's Werther's Original with Mandrax he'll still have sufficient smarts to get past NC, who is fairly fast-handed but defensively naive. Bernard looked live enough to me against Dawson (who in my view would beat Cleverly 100 times out of 50) and he would need to have declined since then in a manner akin to RJJ post Tarver 1 to give Nathan a chance of getting the verdict (I don't reckon he could stop Hopkins if they allowed him a lump hammer).

I believe Hopkins is much nearer to the version of himself that nearly beat Calzaghe than Cleverly will ever, EVER be to that version of Joe.