Dawson vs Johnson: Will the Outcome Be Any Different this time?

By Chris Williams: Supposedly, boxing fans wanted to see former IBF light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (28-0, 17 KOs) fight a rematch with 40-year-old Glen Johnson (49-12-2, 33 KOs) next month, but I’m not one of them. I don’t see the point of it. By the time that Dawson, 27, faces Johnson next month on November 7th, at the XL Center, in Hartford, Connecticut, Johnson will be almost 41-years-old.

That’s a bit too old to get me excited about this fight. Already the last one and Dawson dominated when he was fighting, and throwing punches. But like in his fights against Antonio Tarver, as soon as Dawson would stop punching, which he did for long spells as he seemed to lose concentration, Johnson would then start punching himself.

It was like a button that Dawson would push. Either he was totally dominating Johnson, making him look like an over matched old man, or Dawson would suddenly just do nothing but cover up for long spells. Afterwards, boxing fans said how great Johnson was and all that baloney, but I saw it as Dawson just letting him get off his punches for one reason or another.

Maybe it’s a stamina problem for Dawson, who knows? He doesn’t look tired, only bored. He looked bored in the Johnson fight and in both the Tarver bouts. Dawson dominated Tarver for a couple of rounds, just beating him and making him look like he didn’t belong in the same ring with him.

But then Dawson would stop punching and just cover for awhile. It could be that Dawson isn’t comfortable beating his opponents in one-sided fights and needs to have them at least throwing and landing punches for him to get interested in the fight. But whatever the case, I don’t see the Johnson fight being any different than it was last time.

It might be close, but only because Dawson will stop punching and allow Johnson to throw punches. When Dawson wants to, he’ll take command of the fight and make Johnson look old and slow. There won’t be any suspense, because Dawson will pull away from Johnson like he’s standing still when he takes charge. I see that as waste of time.

I wish the boxing fans had cried instead for Dawson to fight Tavoris Cloud, the unbeaten International boxing Federation light heavyweight champion. Now I’d like to see Dawson fight him. Cloud has excellent power, a heavy pressure offensive style of fighting and terrible defense.

He’d be a great opponent for Dawson. That would be interesting, but not watching Dawson basically toy the near 41-year-old Johnson for 12 rounds. We already saw Dawson fight two fights against the 40-year-old Tarver, and another against Johnson earlier last year. Why do we need to see Dawson fight him again? It’s making Dawson look as if he’s only fighting the elderly.

You got to mix in some younger fighters so at least they can make a name for themselves. That’s what I hate about boxing. Once a fighter becomes established, they keep trotting him out again and again just because he’s well known to boxing fans, at the expense of younger up and coming talent. I don’t mind seeing Johnson fight, but let him fight one of the light heavyweight champions like Jean Pascal, Cloud or Zsolt Erdei.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Johnson against Cloud. That would be a great fight and I think Johnson might be able to get Cloud out of there if he pressured enough. Cloud stands straight in front of his opponents, blocks zero incoming shots and he would have problems against a puncher like Johnson.

But I don’t want to see Dawson beat up on Johnson again. Just think, it it’s another close fight like it was last time, we might see yet another rematch between Dawson and Johnson. Save me from this fate. It will only be close because of Dawson going into his shut down periods in certain parts of the fight. He really needs to be broken from this habit because if Dawson can fight consistently hard for a full 12 rounds, he’ll win every round and maybe even stop Johnson.

Most likely, though, Dawson will dominate and then take a break and let Johnson into the fight for awhile and then repeat the pattern of domination. It’s like racing way in front of a slow poke, then letting them catch up and then racing away ahead of them again. It’s boring. I know who’s going to win because Dawson is superior to Johnson in every way – size, speed, power and youth.

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