Has Chad Dawson lost his punch resistance?

By Boxing News - 06/09/2013 - Comments

dawson100By Allan Fox: Chad Dawson (31-3, 17 KO’s) was knocked out for the second straight fight last Saturday night by Adonis Stevenson (21-1, 18 KO’s), and in the process of losing the fight, Dawson lost his WBC light heavyweight title. Dawson, 30, didn’t even make out of the 1st round against Stevenson, as he knocked out with the third punch of the fight by Stevenson.

Dawson only connected on two punches of his own during the fight, but to see him knocked out so quickly was rather alarming considering he’d been knocked out in his previous fight by Andre Ward last September.

You have to now question whether Dawson has lost his punch resistance. The shot that Stevenson hit him with for the knockout really wasn’t that big of a punch and yet it caved Dawson in. When you get a fighter like Dawson who has been knocked out in consecutive fights like this, it’s possible that his ability to take head shots has deteriorated.

Stevenson is a good puncher, but the shot that he hit Dawson with shouldn’t have done that to him. Dawson has taken harder shots than that from the likes of Glen Johnson, Antonio Tarver and Tomasz Adamek, and he was never troubled by the shots. But Andre Ward and Stevenson were able to put Dawson down easily.

The rumors about Dawson being knocked out by Edison Miranda before the Ward fight has been circulating around for a while now. If this is true, it would be Dawson’s third knockout since last September, even though it doesn’t count as knockout. But physically it counts getting whether you’re getting knocked out in sparring or in an actual fight.

Dawson might need to take some time off from boxing to recover from the Stevenson fight because the last thing you want is Dawson to be putting his health in jeopardy by rushing back into the ring in the next four or five months and putting himself at risk for another knockout. Dawson needs to think about taking 12 months off to recover. I’m not sure if that will help but it’s a possibility.



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