Amazingly, despite the rise of those big punching champions, one man keeps proving that old school skills can be just as effective in defeating and even ruining opponents. That man is "
The 48 year old Hopkins, who has seemingly given himself a new nickname in the lead up to this fight, will be facing the Iraq born German-Armenian Karo Murat (25-1-1, 15) a highly regarded European challenger who the IBF have have demanded is a mandatory challenger to Hopkins's title.
As the oldest ever world champion Hopkins is a man of history. In fact Hopkins is arguably a man with more historic significance than any other active fighter. He's set records, broken records, reset records and been the only man to unify all 4 major world titles. As they say however father time beats everyone and with his 49th birthday fast approaching it really does seem like Hopkins is living on borrowed time, however he's making the most of it and has shown an uncanny ability to beat younger men by just using exceptional skills and some nifty old school tricks.
Sure watching Hopkins at work isn't the most exciting thing in the world. He'll never be a Ruslan Provodnikov type fan favourite however he'll often find a way to control a fight, it's pace, range and his opponent. In fact in his most recent bout he made the usually busy Tavoris Cloud look like an old man, limiting his work and making him look much like a B rate fighter.
In Karo Murat we again see Hopkins facing a younger and supposedly fresher fighter who will be making his world title debut. Whilst this is Murat's first world title fight, it's not the first time he has been in with a supposedly "world level" fighter. In fact Murat's record is actually pretty impressive with victories over Gabriel Campillo, Cristian Sanavia and recent world title challenger Tommy Karpency. He has also fought to a draw with Campillo and suffered his sole career loss to Nathan Cleverly.
Whilst Hopkins is an expert in controlling the tempo of the fight Murat himself is a fighter who will take advantage of the fact Hopkins is aging. He has a solid work rate which whilst not extreme does tend to get stronger as the fight goes on, he'll often lose a number of the early rounds as his engine begins to get going but by the middle and late rounds he'll be coming forward trying to grind his opponents down. It's not often pretty but it's usually effective and usually pretty in your face.
If Murat can instill his will on Hopkins this could be an extremely competitive contest and give us the momentum swings that make a great fight. If, however, Hopkins can reach in to his bag of tricks once again he should be able to make Murat look slow, clumsy and a second rate challenger, even though he's a genuinely solid challenger.
My money will be on Hopkins doing it again, though I can understand why others may feel that father time will finally catch up with the greying "Alien".
Prediction-Hopkins UD12
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