This weekend, former light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (30-1 with 17 KOs) takes center stage against living legend Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2 with 32 KOs) for the world light heavyweight championship. Trainer ?Ice? John Scully will be in Dawson’s corner trying to coach on his pupil back to the wolrd championship. In this exclusive interview, Boxingtalk gets Scully’s thoughts, plus his breakdown and prediction for the upcoming Hopkins-Dawson throw down.
Benny Henderson Jr.: How did the training camp go with Chad Dawson?
John Scully: I am honestly extremely motivated and inspired by how well it went. Contrary to what many who don’t know better seem to think, Chad Dawson is a very hard working guy in the gym who knows exactly what needs to be done to get ready and how to do it.
BH: If you can tell the readers, what specifics did you work on to counter that Hopkins style of fighting?
JS: Mainly I told Chad to do what I always told him to do and that is “just be you.” By that I mean for him to utilize his gifts and his talents to their fullest. Let his guns go, empty all his clips and magic will happen. The glimpses the world has seen of him so many times over the last few years, I expect those to be magnified a lot on the 15th of October.
BH: Matching the two up with their styles, strengths and weaknesses, and being brutally honest, do you feel Dawson is above, below, or equal that of Bernard Hopkins?
JS: I’ll say it like this. I believe Hopkinshas been a very diligent, consistent and successful guy over the years because he’s good at what he does. But in a fight like this, the strengths he has as a boxer will very likely not come into play in a particularly meaningful way against a man with the skill set of a Chad Dawson.
