Austin Trout defeats Daniel Dawson

By Boxing News - 08/22/2014 - Comments

trout999By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (27-2, 14 KOs) survived two knockdowns in the 3rd round to come back and defeat 36-year-old #15 WBA Daniel Dawson (40-4-1, 26 KOs) by a 10 round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Pechanga Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California, USA.

The final judges’ scores were 97-90, 97-90 and 97-90. Trout scored a knockdown in the 8th round. Trout dominated in rounds 1 and 2, but in round 3, he was shockingly dropped twice by straight right hands by Dawson. Trout landed on his backside both times and looked embarrassed and hurt. Trout got caught both times while trying to land one of his left hands. Dawson was able to time Trout and tag him with perfectly placed right hands to the head.

Trout was fortunate that Dawson didn’t go after him with any sense of urgency because he might have been able to get him out of there if he had poured it on. Trout looked hurt and was there to be taken out if Dawson had the sense enough to try and finish him off.

In the 7th round, Dawson injured his left calf after Trout stepped on his front foot, causing Dawson to twist his calf muscle while trying to pull away. Dawson limped around badly for the remainder of the round, and he didn’t look comfortable at all.

Trout took advantage of Dawson’s leg injury in the 8th round when he teed off on him with big power shots. He caught Dawson by the ropes and nailed him with a 3-punch combination that put Dawson down. Dawson got back up and was able to duck Trout’s big shots as he tried to score a knockout.

In rounds 9 and 10, Trout tried hard to finish Dawson, but he wasn’t able to put together more than 1-2 punches at a time, and he lacked the power to get the job done.

All in all, it was a mixed performance by Trout. While he showed that he still has his boxing skills, you have to wonder whether his chin has been compromised by the knockdowns he suffered in his last two fights before tonight against Erislandy Lara and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Before the Canelo fight, Trout had never been knocked down, but now he’s getting knocked down in every fight.

This was a victory for Trout, but it’s hard to see this as a positive sign for him that he was knocked down twice by a fighter with average skills like Dawson. If a guy that was able to put Trout down, it’s impossible to see Trout being able to avenge his losses to Canelo and Lara, which is what his goal is.

At this point I think Trout would have major problems just trying to beat some of the top contenders in the division like Jermell Charlo, James Kirkland, Vanes Martirosyan, Javier Maciel, Sergey Rabchenko, Willie Nelson and John Jackson.



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