By Dave Lahr: I suppose it really doesn’t matter now that Chad Dawson has already been beaten by WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal, but I couldn’t help being amused at the scoring by the Canadian judge Jack Woodburn, who had Pascal beating Dawson by an 108-101 score. I don’t know what fight he was watching, but it must have not been this one because the other judges, including HBO unofficial scorer Harold Lederman, had Pascal winning by the scores of 106-103.
But you figured that there’s no way you can dispute who won the 11th round, as Dawson had Pascal hurt and was giving him the works while Pascal was covering up and taking it on the ropes. However, the Canadian judge even gave the 11th to Pascal. How rich is that? How can you give the 11th to Pascal when he was getting beaten from pillor to post up until he clashed heads with Dawson? I don’t even know what to think about that score. It just seemed to really be off the radar screen.
I know Dawson really wanted to fight Pascal, but in hindsight, I think Dawson would have been better waiting until some point in the future when Pascal would be willing to fight in the U.S. or some other neutral country. I guess it doesn’t really matter how the Canadian judge scored it, since Dawson was going to lose the fight anyway. But this kind of thing really makes you shake your head and wonder. Pascal was running in the 11th, and looked to be just trying to make it out of the fight without getting knocked out. He didn’t look like he had the energy or the inclination to fight at that point in the bout. Dawson looked like was going to win the fight after hurting Pascal, but the head butt changed everything and stopped the show just when it was really starting to get interesting.
Dawson can take a lesson from this defeat. Instead of waiting so long to let his hands go, Dawson needs to jump on Pascal – or whoever – immediately and throw a lot of punches without stop until they’re down. Dawson might want to watch some of Shawn Estrada’s fights if he wants a good role model of how he needs to be fighting from now on if he wants to avoid future losses like this. If there’s going to be a head butt in the opening round, at least Dawson can get a no contest out of it instead of a loss. But if Dawson really lets his hands go like he did in the 11th, then I doubt very few fighters would make it out of the round. But he’s going to stop stepping back and admiring his work. That’s a big waste of time and just lets his opponents off the hook.
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