By Allan Fox: Chad Dawson (31-1, 17 KO’s) is showing a great deal of courage by agreeing to move down in weight from 175 lbs to fight WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (25-0, 13 KO’s) in his weight class at 168 lbs. More than that, Dawson will be fighting in Ward’s home city at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California on September 8th.

That really shows how much self belief that Dawson, 30, has in himself to give the 28-year-old Ward those kinds of advantages going into their important bout. Dawson must have felt like he had to give Ward these things in order to make the fight happen, because Dawson has failed to become a big star despite winning the WBC light heavyweight title twice and being considered by many boxing fans as the best fighter in the light heavyweight division since 2006.

Dawson proved conclusively that he is the best fighter at this weight in his last fight by beating Bernard Hopkins by a 12 round decision last April. The win, satisfying as it was, it wasn’t enough for Dawson to become a big star in the sport.

Dawson may be the best fighter at 175, but he’s not well known among casual boxing fans and he still doesn’t have a large fan base. This is perhaps why Dawson was willing to quickly agree to travel to Oakland and lose weight in order to make the fight with Ward.

Dawson’s boxing skills are such that it might not matter that he’ll be fighting in front of a large Ward crowd or that he could be a little weakened from taking off weight to make the 168 pound limit. I think the weight won’t be a problem at all for Dawson, because he already revealed that he was 10 pounds over the weight two weeks ago, and that was with over a month to go before the fight. Dawson will easily shed the little weight left before the fight and will be very hard to beat because of his boxing skills and size.