By Chris Williams: WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (25-1, 16 KO’s) will be defending his World Boxing Council title against former IBF/WBO light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (29-0, 17 KO’s) on August 14th, at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Pascal, originally from Haiti and now living and fighting out of Canada, will be making his 3rd defense of his WBC light heavyweight title. Pascal, 27, last fought against Adrian Diaconu in December 2009, but injured his right shoulder in the fight and needed surgery on it to repair the problem five days after the fight.

The shoulder is still healing, but should be ready to go by the August fight. But coming off a serious injury like that, it’s questionable whether the 5’11” Pascal will be able to compete against the bigger 6’1″ Dawson. Not only does Dawson hit harder, but he’s also just as fast, if not faster than Pascal. When you factor in Dawson’s huge 10″ inch reach advantage over Pascal, it doesn’t look good for the WBC champion.

Dawson has the better defense by far, and is a natural light heavyweight. At 6’1″, Dawson is very comfortable at this weight and moves well around the ring. Pascal is more of a fighter that moves in and out, but doesn’t have the quick movements that Dawson possesses. Pascal was beaten super middleweight Carl Froch by a 12 round decision in December 2008. All Froch did was pressure Pascal, wear him down and then dominate him in the 2nd half of the fight. Froch wants to fight Pascal again after Carl completes competing in the Super Six tournament. However, it’s unclear whether Froch will still want to fight Pascal if he gets trounced by Dawson in August. Froch might want to fight Pascal anyway, because he’s someone he already beat and Dawson might be a couple steps too far for the slow-moving Froch.

Pascal probably needs at a minimum two tune-up fights before taking on a fighter like Dawson. With a shoulder injury like the one that Pascal suffered in the Diaconu fight, it’s not a good thing to be taking on the fighter that is considered to be the best in the light heavyweight division in Pascal’s first fight back from the injury. I don’t care how long Pascal waited before taking the fight. He still needs at least a couple of tune-ups before facing a tall light heavyweight with the skills if Dawson. I would like to have seen Pascal take a tune-up fight against former IBF light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver.

I think that would be a good opponent to gauge whether Pascal would have the skills needed to beat someone like Dawson. However, Tarver, now 40, might be even too dangerous for Pascal and I could see Pascal losing that fight. This is my point. Pascal hasn’t been in with anything like Dawson in his career, and the one time he fought a tall fighter in 6’1″ Froch, Pascal was easily beaten. If Froch is able to beat Pascal, then I give Pascal zero chance of beating a faster fighter with better defensive skills like Dawson.