By Lucian Parfitt (Photo by Actiona Images)

On Saturday night Howard Eastman will attempt to pull off perhaps the biggest upset from a British fighter since Lloyd Honeyghan shocked the world verses Donald Curry (a man for whom greatness seemed assured). Eastman like Honeyghan is a world class operator who is undoubtedly dangerous, but is he any real threat to a champion as established as Hopkins. Hopkins fights like a man half his age, and appears to be cut from the same ageless cloth as Archie Moore and George Foreman (minus the gargantuan bellies, of course).

The fallibility of the two champions is perhaps not comparable, mainly due to Curry’s difficulty to make the 147lbs weight limit, but the two challengers certainly come from the same page. Both Honeyghan and Eastman are undoubtedly eccentric (verging on oddballs, to be fair), and this is where their tremendous self-belief perhaps stems from. Nobody thought Honeyghan could beat Curry, who had up to that point proven himself to be a controlled but consistently lethal professional. Honeyghan however, had the audacity to bet $5000 on himself at 5-1 and boldly claim he would " smash his face in " which of course he came close to achieving.

Eastman’s words in the fight build up have been similarly self-assured. " No disrespect to the champion. I have many styles, styles that you haven't even seen. So I'm just going to take it to him and I know that I'll take him out in five rounds." Although Eastman claims the idea of 5th round stoppage was signaled to him by God it is difficult to believe he genuinely feels he can cause that sort of damage, and that early. Eastman has proven himself to be a less than devastating puncher against his domestic opposition over the past 2 years, with the less than stellar names of Jerry Elliott, Sergey Tatevosyan, and the shot Hassine Cherifi all going well beyond the round predicted for Hopkins dethroning. This prediction looks fool hardy ten fold when you think that Hopkins has never been stopped and in his single loss of note to Roy Jones he was never so much as staggered.

Bernard Hopkins did show some fallibility earlier in his career, having been knocked down twice by Secundo Mercado and engaging in a real war with Antwun Echols but it is telling that Mercado and Echols were both painfully dispatched by knockout in rematches, and remember this was some 11 years ago. Judging by his taming of the usually devastating Felix Trinidad and more controlled destruction of Oscar De La Hoya he is a different fighter now.

The reasons for not finding Eastman’s predictions credible partially stem from how he describes, or more accurately excuses the William Joppy fight, his only loss. " I was playing with him ," he said of Joppy. "I was toying with him. I didn't really take the fight to him….I was led to believe that I was the favorite...just go out there put on a show that people never seen me go out and put on and that's what I did ". Eastman’s persona is often more interesting than endearing and if he truly believes that putting on ‘ a show ’ and ‘t oying ’ with someone is tentatively fighting a series of close rounds until the 12 th and losing a close decision, then he is even more of an oddball than I thought.

Lloyd Honeyghan’s rise to a shot at Curry’s crown was similarly inconspicuous to Eatsman’s, going into the fight after an 8 th round knockout of trial-horse Horrace Shufford. It could be said that this is a testament to unpredictability of boxing that he went on to destroy Curry. But Eastman need not take heart from this, as there is nothing unpredictable about Hopkins, who always prepares impeccably, and invariably goes on, not only to win but to dominate. Perhaps the key pointer that this fight will have few parallels with the shocking upset of 86’ is that Hopkins has little trouble making the weight (he came in at 5lbs under the middleweight limit in his last fight) which was perhaps the most telling factor for Curry’s loss. He had understandable trouble squeezing his 5"11" frame into 147lbs limit well before the Honeyghan fight.

Despite all this Eastman is a solid and capable fighter, and Hopkins can forget about a knockout, you would have to wield knuckle dusters rather than gloves to stop Eastman, and that’s just on cuts. Expect the early going to be competitive, both are slow starters, but I anticipate Hopkins to characteristically begin to dominate as the fight goes on for a fairly comfortable decision. But as long as Eastman doesn’t try to demonstrate his version of a show then he should provide a few more nervous moments for the champion than recent opponents De La Hoya and Allen did.