By Scott Gilfoid: WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-1, 17 KO’s) will be at a big disadvantage in a number of areas in his September 8th fight against WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward (25-0, 13 KO’s) at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.

Dawson will be coming down in weight seven pounds to fight Ward at 168 lbs instead of Dawson’s usual weight of 175 for his light heavyweight fights, and he’ll also be fighting in Ward’s hometown of Oakland, California. That’s going to be a big problem right there for Dawson. Fighting in front of 10,000 screaming Ward fans is going to be no treat.

Ward feeds off that noise and seems to fight a lot better. Dawson is going to have to shut out the crowd noise, not let it get him down mentally while at the same time picking up his own game another level to match Ward’s adrenalin. The good thing is that Ward can’t fight on adrenalin from the crowd for 12 rounds. That kind of high will only work for a short duration of the fight and he doesn’t have the KO power to get Dawson out of there. Ward also has the better inside fighting ability compared to Dawson, so if he can force Dawson on the inside against the ropes then he could do very well indeed.

But what I see this fight coming down to is the long reach of Dawson. He’s going to be sporting a five inch reach advantage against Ward, and that’s going to enable Dawson to do whatever he pleases when the action on the outside.

Knowing Ward, he’ll dive forward constantly to try and force the fight inside, but Dawson is clever and will dodge these dive bombing raids like a matador. Dawson has to use quick feet and a high punch output for him to win this fight because Ward does really well against fighters that pot shot or who fight without confidence.