Hopkins says Dawson does not deserve a rematch

Bernard Hopkins has his belt back. Actually, he never relinquished it.

After losing to Chad Dawson last Saturday night in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia fighter refused to hand over his World Boxing Council light-heavyweight belt because he believed he had been fouled when Dawson lifted him and threw him to the canvas in the second round.

He just wouldn't hand it over when the judges asked him for the belt, Hopkins said in a telephone interview Friday. He described their reaction to his refusal as: "headlights."

Two days ago, the WBC agreed with his reasoning, and changed the ruling on the bout from a TKO for Dawson to a technical draw.

Still, Hopkins isn't satisfied. He wants the bout to be ruled a disqualification.

"It can be whatever they want it to be when they watch the tape and see the ref made the wrong call," said the 46-year-old Hopkins, who suffered a dislocated shoulder. "He didn't follow the rules. First of all, you can't get TKO'd unless you get punched.

"When you deliberately try to hurt me by picking me [up] off my feet with his one knee, and having me off balance so I can fall, and then nudging me down with your shoulder hard, not soft," Hopkins said, "your intent was to hurt me in the worst way."

On Friday morning, Hopkins saw a doctor about his inflamed left shoulder. The fighter said he will need three to six weeks of therapy and will find out next week whether there is structural damage.

He plans to return to the ring in March to defend his title. And it doesn't look as if a rematch with Dawson is on the horizon.

"I don't think the fans would want to see it," Hopkins said. "He can't promote, the tickets did sloppy, the pay-per-view. I'm not bragging about this because it hurts me, too.

"As far as I'm concerned, Chad Dawson will never be in the ring with me, in life," Hopkins continued. "Because he don't deserve it. He's not in my class. And he has a different agenda. He said all promotion, 'I'm going to be the fighter that ends Bernard's career.' . . . I knew what he meant by that now."

Dawson told ESPN after the WBC's decision to take back his belt that Hopkins "knew he couldn't beat me. That night he found a way out. I think it's wrong."

On Saturday after the bout, the 29-year-old Dawson made several disparaging comments about Hopkins during an in-ring interview with HBO. Hopkins said he felt disrespected by Dawson's comments, in which he was called a gangster and a coward, and was accused of faking the injury.

In his in-ring interview, Hopkins said he believed that he was being run out of boxing.

On Friday, he explained that he thinks people want him out because he's a "46-year-old whupping 26-, 27-, 28-year-old guys."

"I'm going to give them hell until I stop fighting," Hopkins said. "I'm going to give them hell until I die.

"Because at the end of the day, it takes no effort to be the same; it takes effort to be different. And that's Bernard Hopkins. My tombstone will say, 'Courage by any means necessary.' Nobody in this boxing game gave me anything. I took it."