Dawson vs. Johnson for WBC light Heavyweight title on Nov 7th; Klitschko Brothers Not Likely to Fight Haye

By Boxing News - 08/13/2009 - Comments

dawson42339By Jim Dower: Former International Boxing Federation light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (28-0, 17 KO’s) will be fighting a rematch against 40-year-old Glen Johnson (49-12-2, 33 KO’s) on November 7th for the interim WBC light heavyweight title at the XL Center, in Hartford, Connecticut. That fact that the WBC belt is on the line is somewhat of a joke, because there’s already a WBC light heavyweight champion and that’s Jean Pascal and this is just another sanctioning body trying to take advantage of a big fight by putting a title on the line when it really doesn’t matter.

It’s the boxing fans that wanted Dawson and Johnson to take this fight after seeing how competitive their previous fight was last year in April. Dawson, 27, won that fight by a close 12 round decision. Since then, there have been a cry from a number of fans about a rematch because a good portion of them felt that Johnson should have won the fight. I’m not one of them, though.

I had Dawson clearly winning the fight by at least three to four rounds. Dawson made it close because he tended to lose focus at times in the fight and stop punching. It was during this time, that Johnson was able to get his punches in and make the fight close. When Dawson was boxing and moving, he easily dominated the slower, plodding Johnson.

The rematch will likely be similar to Dawson’s second fight with Antonio Tarver. When Dawson was using his boxing skills and throwing combinations, Tarver no chance. But when Dawson would stop punching for extended periods of time, it gave Tarver a chance to win some rounds.

Having another title on the line pretty silly. Dawson recently vacated the IBF light heavyweight title because he was going to be forced to fight Tavoris Cloud in a fight that would have meant a much smaller payday than Dawson would have gotten in his fight with Johnson. The last thing that Dawson needs is another title so that he’ll be further hamstrung into fighting someone like Pascal or whoever the WBC deems that he should fight.

The Klitschko Brothers Not Likely to Fight Haye

It looks as if British heavyweight David Haye may have burned his bridges with the Klitschko brothers, both of whom Haye, 28, recently walked away from deals with. Vitali Klitschko, along with his manager Bernd Boente, don’t see likely that they’ll be looking towards Haye for a potential bout.

This could be a problem for Haye should he capture the WBA heavyweight title in his November 7th bout against seven foot champion Nikolay Valuev. Haye wants to quickly get as many important fights as possible so that he can retire early, which is a stated goal of his.

However, apart from the Klitschko brothers, who hold the IBF/WBC and WBO heavyweight titles, there’s no other heavyweights that come close to in ability or popularity. Haye could find himself defending the WBA title against heavyweights in fights that will bring him in very little money, but with a high risk.

Haye might be good enough to beat some of the heavyweights like John Ruiz, Kali Meehan and Dennis Boytsov, but Haye would be tested severely against fighters like Kevin Johnson, Lamon Brewster and Alexander Povetkin.



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