Kovalev-Pascal II set for Jan 30th.

[blackbelt2003]

The Dawson win was an upset at the time...but in hindsight he was damaged goods after the Ward fight.

Straight after Stevenson he lost to Tommy Karpency...that tells you all you need to know about what beating Chad Dawson at this stage of his career means.


But I guess you could say something similar about beating Hops. It was an impressive win, but I suppose you'd have to concede that any guy who is P4P worthy should be able to outscore a 50yr old man, however good he was in his prime and however well preserved he still is.

I have a feeling we don't quite know just how good (or bad) either Kovalev or Stevenson are as their recent wins either flatter to deceive or trick us into underrating them, based on how you look at the fights.

I just want them to fucking fight, already.



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[BrutalBodyShots]

(02-05-2016 01:38 PM)blackbelt2003 Wrote:  The Dawson win was an upset at the time...but in hindsight he was damaged goods after the Ward fight.

Absolutely. The Dawson-Stevenson fight reminded me of the Jones-Johnson fight in that Dawson and Jones both were coming off of brutal losses (both involving weight drops in prior fights) yet both were heavily favored in their following fights after those losses. I know Jones was a 5-1 or 6-1 favorite over Johnson and Dawson was a 3-1 or 4-1 favorite over Stevenson.

[blackbelt2003]

Interesting comparison, BBB. Both Dawson and Roy took too much weight off and were never the same again, taking beatings in a way they wouldn't have done beforehand.


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[BrutalBodyShots]

Makes you wonder how many successful years Dawson could have had at 175 had he not made the drop to fight Ward. Dawson/Kovalev would have actually been a nice match up and I have my doubts that Stevenson ices him in 1 if it weren't for weight drain and beating he took from Ward.

With Jones I've often wondered what would have happened if he stayed at Heavy. Like the Ruiz fight, without question he would have had to carefully hand pick opponents to minimize risk and maximize result; no way could Jones have taken on any of the 235+ pound monsters and had success. He could have grabbed wins over guys like Holyfield around the time Toney beat him or a guy like Byrd who was a small heavyweight. Speaking of Toney, that would have been a fun rematch many years and multiple divisions higher.

After the Ruiz fight, really the only resume-building thing Jones accomplished was in his very next fight grabbing a close decision win over Tarver. The rest of his career at that point is irrelevant to his legacy as it consisted of meaningless wins and losses more often than not. So you have to weigh that single Tarver win verses a handful of potential wins he could have grabbed staying at Heavy following the Ruiz win. And, at least if he took a loss even by KO at Heavy there's always the argument "well he was at Heavy" where a good amount of his losses outside of Heavy are just ugly moments that really should have never happened and that most of us want to forget.

[blackbelt2003]

I'm glad Jones took the first Tarver fight as it answered questions about his resolve and heart. He took some wallops from Tarver in that fight but gutted out the win. In hindsight that would have been the perfect time to bow out.


I think Dawson vs Kov would have been interesting. Dawson's win over Hops was just as impressive, coming as it did against a slightly closer-to-prime version of Hopkins.

Dawson was such a wasted talent, looking back.


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[Snoop]

Dawson would quite literally stop caring in the middle of a fight.

[blackbelt2003]

I remember being as bored as he was by about round 8 of some of his fights, when he was clearly better than his opponent and would just go through the motions.


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