By Eric Thomas: WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-1, 18 KO’s) will be facing former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-2-1, 16 KO’s) next, but not in Pascal’s adopted home country of Canada.
Dawson, 29, doesn’t want to take his chances fighting in Canada again, as he lost an 11th round technical decision to Pascal last year in August when Dawson was cut by a headbutt in the 11th round. Instead of allowing Dawson to finish the round to see if his corner cut stop the bleeding, the fight was halted and it went to the scorecards.
Dawson said at the post fight press conference, which was attended by Pascal, “This time we’re going to do it in the U.S.”
Pascal will have to go along with whatever Dawson wants because Dawson is the champion now and Pascal is the challenger.
The bad thing for Dawson was that he had Pascal badly hurt and only needed a little more time and he likely would have knocked him out. The stoppage probably saved Pascal by allowing him to escape the round to go to the scorecards.
Dawson defeated Bernard Hopkins by a 2nd round TKO last Saturday night when Hopkins fell down after being shucked off Dawson’s back. Hopkins hurt his left shoulder and because the fight was halted from an injury, Hopkins lost by a TKO. Hopkins is planning on appealing the stoppage to see if it can be ruled a no contest. If he’s successful, Hopkins will keep his WBC title and will be able to continue to defend the belt, but not against Dawson. Hopkins’ promoter Richard Schaefer says he doesn’t want to match Hopkins back up with him and the feelings are mutual from Dawson and his promoter Gary Shaw.
Dawson had problems with Pascal’s hand speed last time around, and he failed to push the fight at a fast pace. Instead of making the stamina deficient Pascal work hard, Dawson fought at a really slow pace that allowed Pascal to conserve energy and continue to fight in periodic bursts of energy. Dawson will have to push the fight at a faster pace if he doesn’t want to fall behind like he did last time.
Comments are closed.