By Jack Sumner @Jack_Sumner_
Light heavyweight
king Chad Dawson returns to action this Saturday when he defends his WBC and Ring Magazine
titles against dangerous puncher Adonis ‘Superman’ Stevenson. Fighting in
the challenger’s homeland at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada, Dawson aims
to bounce back from last September’s damaging defeat to super middleweight
champion Andre Ward.
Dawson (31-2-2, 17
KO’s) was comprehensively outboxed and dropped several times then beaten
into submission in the tenth round, a result that shocked the boxing fraternity
not because betting favourite Ward won but due to the manner of his victory. A
relatively light puncher at the weight, no one expected Ward to be able to stop
Dawson, despite ‘Bad’ Chad stepping down a division and appearing to be visibly
weakened at 168.
Considered the world’s premier light heavyweight, many
suggested a different result had the fight taken place at Dawson’s natural
limit and as such the loss to Ward did little to harm his reputation. However,
having gone 2-2 with one no contest in his last five outings and neither a
stoppage win nor a particularly dominant points verdict in that sequence, does
Dawson’s form really merit that of a man seen as the consensus number one in
his weight class?
The last time Dawson ventured to Montreal for a world title
fight he lost an eleven round technical decision to Jean Pascal, the first loss
of his career with all three judges scoring the fight to the Canadian by a wide
margin. That was followed by a hard-fought points win over Romanian contender
Adrian Djaconu before Dawson’s two meetings with Bernard Hopkins and that
bizarre two round no contest preceding a scrappy majority decision verdict over
the ageing legend. Then, came his utter dismantling by Ward.
There can be no question mark over the form of the
challenger Stevenson (20-1, 17 KO’s)
who comes into this encounter riding a seven fight knockout streak, but the
Haitian-born 35-year-old will be fighting in the light heavyweight division for
the first time. Stevenson scored a twelfth round TKO of Donovan George last
October to become Carl Froch’s number one contender at super middleweight, but
after the Cobra signed for a rematch with Mikkel Kessler, he snatched at the
opportunity to move up in weight and challenge Dawson instead.
‘Superman’ stayed busy in the meantime with a sixth round
knockout of Darnell Boone, avenging his only career defeat in the process. In
April 2010, Stevenson first met Boone and was expected to record an early
knockout victory, but having floored the American journeyman twice in the
first, rushed onto a solid right and was knocked out himself in the second
round.
At super middleweight Stevenson has displayed one-punch
finishing power though it remains to be seen whether his punches will have that
effect at 175. As evidenced by the loss to Boone, his punch resistance is
questionable and he can be defensively vulnerable, despite having tightened up
over recent training camps thanks to the tutelage of the late Emmanuel Steward.
Dawson could well be vulnerable following his crushing loss
to Ward which prompted a change in personnel in his corner, releasing John
Scully and bringing back his old trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. The mental as
well as physical hammering he took in that fight raises a question mark over
his state of mind right now. He basically quit rather than take any further
punishment and if he’s tagged by one of Stevenson’s bombs early, he could
unravel. There’s a lot of pressure on Dawson here.
Having said that Dawson’s skill set is far superior to
Stevenson’s. He’s quite simply the much better boxer who, if he brings his ‘A’
game, should be able to jab and counterpunch his way to victory. A lot depends
here on which Chad Dawson turns up but he’s proven at world level where
Stevenson isn’t. Back fighting at his optimum weight and now with much to
prove, he may be coming with a heavy dose of Kryptonite for Superman.
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