FanHouse Roy Jones

Don't wish Bernard Hopkins success, wish him failure.

Specifically, tell the 44-year-old boxer that he's so far past his prime, that you believe he'll lose on Dec. 2 to unheralded 29-year-old Enrique Ornelas, the man he will meet in a non-title, 12-round light heavyweight (175 pounds) bout at Temple University's Liacouras Center in Hopkins' hometown of Philadelphia.

"People have written me off a lot of times in my life, and that's been my biggest motivation. I've always needed people to be rooting against me," said Hopkins, a former Philadelphia street criminal who survived three stabbings, was imprisoned at age 18 for five years, and released in 1988.

"I did not let the street life destroy me. I'm that throwback Philadephia fighter who just happened to take care of himself, and that's why I'm still here," said Hopkins, who is 49-5, with 32 knockouts.

Denmark's Mikkel Kessler has more than twice as many fights -- and wins -- as Andre Ward.

The champion has more than three times as many knockouts, and could be stronger than the challenger, if not equally as fast and athletic.

And although Kessler is six years older than Ward, the WBA super middleweight titlist seems to be in his prime.

Ward (pictured far right) appears to be the underdog in most phases of the matchup. But if you ask his promoter, Dan Goossen, that's just the way Ward likes it.

Former IBF cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek, a winner of eight straight bouts -- six of them by knockout -- will continue his pursuit of heavyweight glory and recognition when he enters the ring on Feb. 6 at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., his promoter, Kathy Duva, said on Friday.

Adamek (39-1, 27 knockouts) will go after his second straight heavyweight opponent at the Prudential Center, where the resident of nearby Jersey City routinely packs the stands with his local support.

"It's been a very long time since the boxing public has seen the kind of action in a heavyweight fight that they enjoyed before the super heavyweights who dominate the division these days. When a heavyweight title fight is exciting, it is always the smaller guy in the ring pressing the action," said Duva.

Former Olympic gold medalist, Andre Ward, calls upcoming rival, Mikkel Kessler, of Denmark, "absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt the most skilled" fighter that he will have faced over the course of his nearly five-year professional career.

"He's the champion. He's very tough. I take nothing away from Mikkel Kessler," said Ward, who will put his 20-0 record with 13 knockouts on the line in pursing Kessler's WBA 168-pound title on Nov. 21 before a partisan crowd at Oracle Arena in Oakland. "At the same time, this is what it's all about -- taking the challenge and rising to it. And I plan on doing that 11 days from now."

Their first-round clash is part of Showtime's Super Six Middleweight World Boxing Classic.

Southpaw "Bad" Chad Dawson moved effortlessly around the ring while Glen "The Road Warrior" Johnson was mostly flat-footed and looked old.

Dawson fired his right jab, following it up with left hooks and straight lefts. Dawson won the exchanges when they existed over the course of Saturday night's lopsided, 12-round unanimous decision over the aging Johnson before a partisan crowd at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn.

In victory, Dawson improved to 29-0 with 17 knockouts, earning the WBC's interim light heavyweight title while also defending his IBO crown, and in the process erasing all doubt as to who won the first Dawson-Johnson bout in April 2008.

Perhaps Glen Johnson's best attempt at head-games during the buildup to Saturday night's 175-pound rematch with IBO titlist Chad Dawson is his refusal to admit defeat.

The facts are that Johnson was not only judged the loser of their first light heavyweight clash in April of 2008 by scores of 116-112 on all three cards, but that the decision was rendered before a partisan crowd in Miami -- not far from the native Jamaican's current home in Hollywood, Fla.

But Johnson's insistence that he was "robbed" clearly rankles Dawson's promoter, Gary Shaw, and if nothing else, has Dawson so chagrined that he has vowed to turn up the heat when they face off at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn., near the champion's hometown of New Haven.

IBF cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek scored knockdowns in the first and fifth rounds of Saturday night's clash with former three-time heavyweight title challenger Andrew Golota on the way to stopping his larger rival in five at the Atlas Arena in Lodz, Poland.

A native of Zywiec, Poland, who lives in Jersey City, Adamek rose to 39-1 with his 27th knockout and his eighth consecutive victory -- his sixth by stoppage.

England's Carl Froch overcame the speed, athleticism and switch-hitting tactics of previously unbeaten Andre Dirrell of Flint Mich., to retain his WBC super middleweight title by a split-decision Saturday night at the Trent FM Arena in Nottingham, England.

Froch benefited from referee, Hector Afu's, 10th-round, one-point deduction penalty against Dirrell during a session in which Froch was hurt by the challenger, only to rebound en route to the split-decision that was welcomed by most of the more than 7,000 screaming fans on hand.

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Former undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins will fight hard-punching Enrigue Ornelas on Dec. 2 at the Liacorous Center on the campus of Temple University in his hometown of Philadelphia.

The 12-round light heavyweight matchup for Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 knockouts) precedes an agreed-upon rematch with Florida's multi-champion Roy Jones (54-5, 40 KOs) that is slated for perhaps late January or early February, assuming Jones gets through his cruiserweight bout on the same night against Austrailia's Danny Green (27-3, 24 KOs).

Mark Taffet, Senior Vice President of HBO Sports Pay Per View, said Floyd Mayweather "clearly has proven his star status by generating the kinds of pay per view numbers that very few men in the history of the sport have ever generated."

FanHouse spoke to Taffet, the man in charge of HBO's Pay Per View, as he addressed Mayweather, the Nov. 14 megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, the cable giant's "hunger to go younger" initiative geared toward drawing America's youth to the sport of boxing, and how the organization determines which fights are deserving of pay television status during this exclusive interview.