Dawson beats Johnson for the 2nd time, gets little credit
November 10th, 2009
By Dave Lahr: For the second time in a year, light heavyweight Chad Dawson (29-0, 17 KO’s) defeated 40-year-old Glen Johnson by a 12 round unanimous decision and for the second time, Dawson, 27, got little credit for having done so. It’s unfortunate, because Dawson boxing incredibly well in beating Johnson by a decision, but there is barely a peep about the win in the boxing community.
Johnson looked good in the 1st round, but fought poorly in the rest of the fight. Johnson’s ability to connect with his shots was minimal after the opening round. The rest of the fight saw a pattern of Johnson moving slowly forward at a snail’s pace and getting hit with blazing fast combinations and jabs from Dawson. It was nice to see, but disappointing that Dawson was urged to take the fight to begin with.
Dawson had already fought and beaten the 40-year-old Johnson last year, and also been forced to beat 40-year-old Antonio Tarver twice. Tarver, the International Boxing Federation light heavyweight champion at the time of his first fight with Dawson last year in October, had a rematch clause. So when Dawson defeated Tarver in a one-sided 12 round decision, Dawson had little choice but to fight him again.
Then after beating Tarver about as bad as he did in the first fight, the pressure came for Dawson to fight Johnson a second time. I couldn’t see the point, and didn’t view it as a bout that would further Dawson’s career any. After all, he already beat Johnson once, what could there be to gain by beating him again? But fight him he did, and as you would expect, Dawson isn’t being given much credit for having done so.
Dawson now needs to consider moving out of the light heavyweight division to the super middleweight division. There’s few popular fighters for Dawson to fight at light heavyweight other than Tavoris Cloud, an untested slugger who is largely unknown to the boxing public. Cloud looks to be a lesser version of Johnson, and it would be probably as one-sided as Dawson’s win over Johnson last Saturday night. Dawson likely won’t get a lot of credit for beating Cloud.
Then there’s WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal for Dawson to fight. But that’s not exactly an interesting bout either, because Pascal was beaten last year by Carl Froch. And that would be like Dawson getting sloppy seconds. Pascal isn’t a popular fighter and you could expect for Dawson to get little attention for beating Pascal.
If Dawson does move down in weight, he’ll not have a lot of options at super middleweight other than taking on IBF champion Lucian Bute, because the other top super middleweights are currently tied up in the Super Six tournament. A fight against Bute would be great if Dawson could land the fight.
Tags: 8 Responses to “Dawson beats Johnson for the 2nd time, gets little credit”
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we couldnt even knockout a old battlecat like johnson?? i give more props to johnson.. dawson fails to impress me.. too much hype not enough action.
For me I like the idea Of Pascal V Dawson, also I’d like to see him fight Tavoris Cloud both fights would represent more of a challenge to Dawson as well as unifying a few belts for the winners, so a little round robin and winner of it, gets a good pay day fighting B’hop.
Nice hairstyle Chad, pretty neat.
I disagre with the last couple of comments. This man has fought the best opponents available at 175 is overrated. Tomasz Adamek, Tarver twice, and Johnson twice. These are the best fights available to him, he want to fight Calazaghe he retired, he wanted to fight hopkins but hopkins said he didn’t want to fight young guns anymore but then hopkins called out Paul Williams. The truth is he has a defenseive style with is to most boring but is near unbeatable with his talents and a dull personality which equals low tickets and pay per view sales. No one wants to fight the best without getting paid for it too much risk, too little reward. He also fights the people fans wanted, you screamed for a rematch with johnson but now that he has beaten him he is over protected? He a great fighter in a dead division he will countine to win and you will eat your words. Peace
the rematch with johnson happened because a lot of people thought johnson won (i’m not one of them tho).
& pascal may have lost to froch but it was very tight. pascal has improved off the back of that fight & looks very strong at LH…i’d pick pascal to beat dawson tbh. i don’t think dawson is anything special. just another over-hyped protected american fighter with a dull style. pascal is a proper pro & he’d bang him out.
i agree with Mr M.Johnson dawson is over rated building up his record by beating fighters he’s already beat before.i think Pascal would beat him, good fight to make
Dawson is an overated boxer like most Americans these days.Its ashame really as a New Yorker myself.
I disagree that Dawson vs Pascal means a non-interesting bout? Because Pacal lost to Froch? How does that loss count against Pascal, who was struggling to make Super Middleweight at the time? Both Dawson and Pascal are title holders, fast handed, high workrate and technically sound. It may not interest a casual Sports punter, but Boxing fans would find that fight very appealing.