By Jim Dower: Instead of watching IBF light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (27-0, 17 KOs) fight a rematch with Glen Johnson, who gave Dawson a tough fight in April 2008, we’ll be forced to watch Dawson once again fight Antonio Tarver which will be taking place on March 14th at the Palms Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dawson, 26, previously easily defeated Tarver in a one-sided unanimous decision on October 11th, 2008.
However, Tarver, the IBF champion going into his initial fight with Dawson, was smart enough to include a rematch clause in his contract with him. The clause forced Dawson to fight him again, even though Tarver has next to zero chance of beating him and will likely get stomped on as bad, if not worse, than last time. The rematch, though, will give Tarver a chance for a good payday, but that’s about it. The fans will end up the losers because Dawson will probably win most of the rounds except the ones where he rests up and takes it easy on the 40-year-old Tarver.
Leading up to his last fight with Tarver, Dawson, not much of a skilled talker, lost the war of words with Tarver repeatedly in press conferences, where Tarver showed off his superb oratory skills against a quiet Dawson. Unfortunately, Tarver was unable to match his talk in the ring and was easily defeated by Dawson, who used his superior speed, combinations and power to pound out a decision against Tarver.
The fight might as well have been called off early, because Tarver was far too slow and weak to do much against Dawson and was beaten to the punch in every round of the fight. The only rounds where Tarver was able to have any success were those that Dawson, mostly bored, allowed Tarver to land some punches. In the 6th and 11th rounds, Dawson seemed to grow bored with the fight and let Tarver throw some punches while Dawson covered up, peeking at him through his gloves.
Tarver, however, looked old and slow, throwing right-left combinations in a mechanical manner and showing no variety or power in his shots, even when given the chance to tee-off on Dawson. Way behind on points, Tarver went after Dawson in the 12th round, but instead was knocked down when Dawson hammered him with a big right hand.
In the end, Tarver didn’t have the speed, power or ability to defeat Dawson and ended up losing badly. It’s hard to say what will change next time out, other than maybe Tarver losing even worse. Dawson seemed to toy with him last time, hitting him with flurries and power shots any time he wanted to and having zero problems with him.
Indeed, Dawson looked bored with him as early as the 4th, after having won the first three rounds handily. Perhaps Tarver might be able to make things different if he suddenly bum rushes Dawson at the start of the fight. Who knows? Maybe Tarver can connect with a big left hand like he did in his 2nd round 2nd round TKO of Roy Jones Jr. in 2004.
The problem is, Dawson is a southpaw, too, and there’s no element of surprise for Tarver like there was in his fight against Jones. As such, look for Tarver to beat in another embarrassing one-sided fight by Dawson on March 14th. Hopefully, this will be the end of the rematches between the two fighters, so that Dawson can move onto more meaningful fights like a rematch with Johnson or a fight with Joe Calzaghe or Mikkel Kessler.
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