Bernard Hopkins Next Fight Will Be Against Chad Dawson

History was made Saturday night when Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KO) defeated Jean Pascal (26-2-1, 16 KO) to become the oldest man to ever win a major boxing championship. But Hopkins isn’t done yet. During his in-ring post-fight interview, Hopkins made it clear that he intended to keep fighting until he was close to 50. We do know that Hopkins has two more HBO fights on his contract, so it’s a certainty that we’ll see him fight at least through 2012.

Hopkins’ next opponent will be “Bad” Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KO). Dawson rebounded from his first ever career loss, a technical decision against Pascal in August 2010, by picking up a decision win over Adrian Diaconu on the undercard of the Pascal/Hopkins bout.

Dawson actually had a rematch clause with Pascal that he set aside to allow the Hopkins/Pascal rematch to take place. That move put him in position to get a shot at the winner of the main event on HBO and promoter Bob Arum made it clear after the event that Hopkins would either face Dawson, or not fight on HBO.

That doesn’t seem to be a problem for Hopkins as he said he was fighting Dawson next, then wanted Lucian Bute in his next fight.

Under the guidance of new trainer Emanuel Steward we were told we would see a new Dawson, one who used his tremendous physical talents to fight more aggressively and end fights. Instead, it seemed that it was more of the same. He jabbed and used his reach, but rarely opened up and gave what was roundly considered a disappointing performance. He also showed defensive deficiencies, getting clipped while backing up straight and occasionally getting roughed up by the much smaller Diaconu.

In Hopkins, Dawson will face a fighter who can exploit those mistakes and even create more openings through his own roughhouse tactics.