By Eric Thomas: Former light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (29-1, 17 KO’s) was beaten by WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1, 16 KO’s) by an 11 round technical decision that still has a lot of boxing fans shaking their heads at the quick stoppage by the ringside doctor after Dawson was cut from a head butt from Pascal just when Dawson had Pascal hurt. Say what you want about Dawson not performing at his best in the earlier rounds, but he clearly had Pascal hurt and was drilling him to pieces under Pascal swiveled his head around and rammed Dawson’s head in an accidental headbutt that cut Dawson over his right eye.
After the fight, Dawson said “I was on the way to stopping him and he knew that. Before they stopped the fight, I had him hurt. We had two more rounds to fight.” Now if I hadn’t see this fight and hadn’t seen how hurt Pascal was in the 11th, I would think that Dawson just had a case of sour grapes about his loss. But I DID see the fight and Pascal was badly hurt and getting pummeled for the entire round until that beauty of a head butt occurred. That head butt was like the hail mary of boxing.
The head butt clearly got Pascal out of a big predicament and probably saved him from getting knocked out. It wasn’t just the head; it was the doctor quickly stopping the fight. That kind of thing usually doesn’t happen in America. The ringside doctors usually allow the fight to get to the end of the round to see if the trainer can stop the bleeding. In this case, Pascal was badly hurt, absorbing punishment, looking like was ready to go and the bang, the head butt occurred. The doctor then quickly pulls the plug on the fight. Maybe that’s how fights go in Canada, but in the United States the fight would have likely been allowed to go to the end of the round, especially if the fighter that was head butted [Dawson] looked to be on the verge of scoring a knockout. I didn’t the like the head butt, I didn’t the stoppage and I don’t like the timing of the head butt.
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