By Allan Fox: There’s been a lot of talk about WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-1, 17 KO’s) making a big mistake by coming down from 175 lbs to take a fight against WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (25-0, 13 KO’s) on September 8th at the Oracle Arena, in Oakland, California.

Fans think that Dawson will be weakened by coming down in weight to make the 168 pound limit. However, I believe Dawson in what he says that he’ll have no problem making that weight class. He wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t already know how he’ll feel after making that weight. But Ward could be in for a real problem against the 6’2″ Dawson, because he’ll have a big five inch reach advantage over Ward, and will likely be much heavier than him when the two fighters step foot in the ring.

Dawson is also a better fighter than Carl Froch, and we saw how Ward struggled in the last four rounds against Froch last December in the Super Six tournament. Froch almost got a draw in that fight, and if a fighter like Froch is good enough to lose by that close of a margin than that suggests that Dawson could be good enough to beat Ward on September 8th.

Ward has always had the advantage of being the faster fighter with the better boxing skills. Against Dawson, he likely won’t have much of any advantage other than his ability to fight on the inside. Dawson isn’t someone that you can force to fight in close, because he’s so skillful at maneuvering away against guys that try to bull him up against the ropes. Ward is kind of crude with what he does to get a fighter fighting an inside war. He does a lot of the same things that Bernard Hopkins does, and we just saw how ineffective Hop was against Dawson last April when Dawson beat Hopkins by a 12 round decision in a mostly one-sided fight.