Dawson: He’s [Tarver] Slow and Old” – Latest Boxing News

By Boxing News - 10/03/2008 - Comments

dawson564385545.jpgBy Scott Gilfoid: Former WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (26-0, 17 KOs) will be attempting to win another light heavyweight title on October 11th against the current IBF light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver (27-4, 19 KOs) at the Palms Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Both fighters have talked endless trash to one another in press conferences and teleconferences with Tarver, 39, coming out the victor in the gift of gab. Dawson, 26, though, has held his own and slung back insults with great precisions, aiming pointedly at Tarver’s advanced age and lack of hand speed, remarking “He’s slow, and he’s old. Come on, look at my last three performances and look at his and tell me who the better fighter is. He’s done.”

Indeed, Tarver is getting up there in age, and isn’t quite as fast as he once was. However, he’s never been a fighter that depended on his speed in which to beat his opponents, and instead has relied mainly on his awkward southpaw stance, his huge 6’2″ height and 75″ reach advantage. However, for the first time, Tarver will find himself facing an opponent not only taller than him at 6’3″ but also with a longer reach than him at 76.”

While that may not be a big deal on its own, it is important when you also factor in that Dawson, too, is a southpaw, is much younger than Tarver at 26, and is much faster than him as well. That’s a lot of things going for Dawson, and the two fighter’s ring experience is essentially even despite Tarver fighting four years longer than Dawson.

Tarver has struggled when facing fighters close to his own height. In fact, against Harding and Bernard Hopkins, both 6’1”, Tarver was defeated. The only real factors that I can see going for Tarver in this fight is better confidence, stamina and chin. Those are all very important factors to have going for you, but I’m not sure whether Tarver will have the power to make a dent in Dawson’s chin. Chad sometimes fades in the latter parts of his fights, like against Tomasz Adamek, who knocked Dawson down in the 10th round with a big right hand in their February 2007 fight.

Dawson, however, got up and held onto win a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision, but it was the second consecutive fight that Dawson was put down, the first being against Eric Harding eight months earlier in the first round. Dawson’s stamina issues generally don’t come into play until the 10th to 11th rounds, and by then he usually has built up an insurmountable lead. Indeed, as far as boxing skills go, there’s no comparison between him and Tarver; Dawson is a much better boxer due to his speed, the amount of combinations he throws, the power and his work rate.

Tarver is going to be losing rounds, a lot of them unless he can get lucky and hurt Dawson with something big. In Tarver’s last fight, a 12-round unanimous decision over British light heavyweight Clinton Woods, he had it easy because Woods fought like a zombie, throwing few punches and doing little until the very tail end of the fight. By the time Woods finally started fighting back, it was far too late to make up the difference and he ended up losing his IBF title to Tarver. However, in the case of Dawson, he’s a much better fighter than Woods, and if Tarver is expecting a similar fight he’s probably going to be in for a big disappointment.