It's a very interesting fight with Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson. A couple of years ago, Bernard Hopkins wanted no part of Chad Dawson. He was a young lefty with a high work rate and they were not even looking his way. And then, all of a sudden, he wants Chad Dawson, so obviously his camp has seen something, probably mentally, that they feel they can exploit in a young guy like Chad Dawson. You have that aspect, and obviously Bernard is a veteran of this game. He is the oldest guy to win a title, but he is still fighting a young guy. Chad, whatever his shortcomings might be, he is still a young guy, and a strong guy. It's now come down to this; if he [Dawson] can mentally stay focused on what he needs to do...I think bringing in a guy like Winky Wright, a veteran and a guy who has been in there with Bernard Hopkins who is there to maybe try to help him through some rough patches, probably bodes well for him. I also think going back to Scully, his old trainer and a guy that knows him best, probably bodes well instead of staying with Emanuel Steward.
Emanuel Steward is a Hall of Fame trainer, no doubt about it, but it takes sometimes 2, 3 maybe 4 fights before you really feel comfortable as fighter and trainer. We saw that with Jermain Taylor. They just could never reach that plateau. I think, unlike everybody else that thinks this is a bad move for Chad Dawson, I actually think it is a good move and that Scully is a good guy. He's actually going with somebody that knows him, and he brought in another veteran fighter that knows the game and that has been in with the likes of Bernard Hopkins and can tell him what to expect. And until you get in there, as Floyd Mayweather always says, it's different when you get in there, so it's going to be different once he gets in there with Bernard Hopkins, but if he keeps his work rate up and Bernard can't hurt him, and he can really feel like he's just going to do his thing, like he did against Antonio Tarver, then Dawson really has a shot at winning this. If Chad Dawson is mentally not up to par, Bernard Hopkins will exploit it and he will retain his title.
Then you look at Dawson's body of work against older fighters, like Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver. He was able to outwork them and make them look up. He hasn't had that work rate in his last couple of fights. We pretty much know what we're going to get from Bernard Hopkins. You're going to get that cagey veteran that fights in spurts, and he will get dirty if he has to, but he doesn't carry that pop. We saw in the Pascal fight that Pascal was able to drop him in the first fight and hurt him in the rematch. I think he may have shook Pascal up a few times, but I think that's really based on Pascal not being a great fighter more than I think it's about Bernard Hopkins in that situation.
I think Chad overlooked Pascal and thought he would just blitz this guy and was looking for the knockout. He was coming back in that fight. If the cut hadn't happened, and all of those sorts of things, I think it may have been a situation where he may have gotten a late stoppage in that fight. Pascal, what he is, he's athletic, but he really can't box and he's a 4-round fighter. You have to go in there with that mindset of breaking this kid down and Dawson didn't do that. But he didn't look great in his last fight, so was that the fact that he was training different? Will it be different now that he's back to somebody that he is comfortable with and not Emanuel Steward? Emanuel Steward, if you don't know how to take him, and yes, he is a legendary trainer, so if you are intimidated by him a little bit, or maybe he doesn't give you the arena you feel you deserve, you may have problems. I don't know what went on with the Chad Dawson situation, I wasn't in camp with them guys; I'm only speculating, but that can be why Chad decided to make this change and go back to his original trainer and I think that could bode well for him in this case.
If Bernard could pull this fight off, it would be extremely impressive if he beat a guy like Chad Dawson, another young guy. It would be another feather in his cap for his legacy. And then you start looking at him and they start comparing the guys that fought in this era, Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins, and he may start to win that argument and be considered the best of his era, especially since he's like 90 years old and still fights. It's a tough fight to predict, this fight, but 46 is 46 and sometimes 46 shows up and I think Chad Dawson wins a decision. It's not my strongest play, but I'm going with youth. The fact that he did show up and do well against Glen Johnson and Antonio Tarver has me leaning his way, but I'm not gonna put no money on it!