Dawson comes in overweight, fined 20% of purse for Blades fight

By Boxing News - 06/20/2014 - Comments

dawson55By Dan Ambrose: Looking kind of thick around the middle, former IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-3, 17 KO’s) came in over the contract weight of 179 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in for his fight against 39-year-old George Blades (23-5, 16 KO’s) on Saturday night at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

Dawson came in at 182.8lbs, and because of that he was fined 20% of his $15,000 purse for the fight. Blades weighed in at 177.4lbs, and easily made the weight. That’s got to hurt Dawson in the pocket book to have $3K taken out of his purse, which already was incredibly small. Dawson was making over $1 million for his fights while the IBF/WBC 175lb champion.

Dawson, 31, hasn’t fought since last year in June when he was knocked out in the 1st round by Adonis Stevenson in Montreal, Canada. That was the second time in 9 months that Dawson had been knocked out, as he was stopped by Andre Ward on his feet in the 10th round in September 2012.

Dawson was stopped on his feet in that fight, but he was hurt numerous times in that fight in getting knockdown down three times. If Dawson hadn’t quit in the 10th after getting knocked down, he very well would have been knocked out in the traditional sense with him being flat on his back or face and unable to beat the 10 count to get back to his feet.

Blades doesn’t have the kind of power to give Dawson any kinds of surprises in this fight, as he’s a guy that Dawson is expected to beat. But if Dawson can’t beat Blades, then it’s probably all over for him and a sign that he needs to retire from the sport. Blades hasn’t fought since last September when he was knocked out by Jean Pascal. He didn’t give Pascal any kind of problems in that fight.

Dawson needs to make a statement in this fight to show that he’s not over-the-hill, and that he can still be a major player in the light heavyweight division when matched against the right guys. I think Dawson can still beat guys like Bernard Hopkins, Beibut Shumenov, Andrzej Fonfara and Jurgen Brahmer. But obviously he can’t be taking on guys like Sergey Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson, because he has problems against big punchers.



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