By Adam Fillingham: As Saturday night draws near and the light heavyweight bout between the young up and comer ‘Bad’ Chad Dawson and ‘magic man’ Antonio Tarver gets closer I cant help but wonder how pointless the fight is. At the age of 40, Antonio Tarver is past his best. We saw that in his last fight with Dawson. For this reason I don’t think he deserves a title shot, or even step in the ring with Dawson.

Dawson literally ripped Tarver to pieces with the judges scores finishing at 118-109 117-110 117-110 all in favour of Dawson. Dawson looked fresh and took charge right from the opening bell without much in reply. Tarver looked all of his 40 years and Dawson used his superior speed advantage well.

So why will this fight be any different? In my opinion it won’t be. Tarver is 7 months older, and 7 months slower but Dawson has gained more experience from his world title win seven months ago.

The only thing going for Antonio Tarver is his far superior experience level. Although his record doesn’t look like much he has been fighting since 1998 (a long 11 years) to Chad Dawson’s 8 years. Not only the length of the career is pivotal here but the standard of opposition is far superior on Tarver’s record than Dawson’s.

Tarver has had three encounters with ring legend Roy Jones Jr, two outings with Glen Johnson and a mega fight with Bernard Hopkins. Dawson’s top three fighters don’t even compare. An out of prime Glen Johnson (in which the decision was close) a weight drained Tomasz Adamek and Antonio Tarver.

So in my opinion I just can’t see how Tarver can win this. Dawson is too fast, powerful, agile and strong chinned for Tarver to defeat. For me his only option is to come out swinging and either knock Dawson out or be knocked out himself.