Following his tenth-round loss to Andre Ward at super middleweight last September, Chad Dawson needed to rebound upon his return to the light heavyweight division. Still WBC champion and the division’s consensus number one fighter, ‘Bad’ Chad was expecting a “tune-up” on his return to 175.
That was at least how he referred to the challenge of Adonis Stevenson, who had moved up from 168 with a reputation as a fearsome puncher. “If the only thing you can say is he’s a good puncher, I feel sorry for him,” Dawson said, whilst also quipping that he’d had to Google Stevenson to find out who he was.
A minute into last Saturday’s encounter in Stevenson’s adopted home of Quebec, Canada, Dawson would find out all he needed to know about the 35-year-old and his much speculated power.
Stevenson landed a thunderous left hook to Dawson’s temple to send him crashing to the canvas; the champion beat the count but not referee Michael Griffin’s discretion and the fight was waved off. Dawson was champion no more and with one punch the landscape of the light heavyweight division had changed dramatically, evoking memories of Roy Jones Jr being levelled by Antonio Tarver nine years ago.
Tarver’s overhand left early in the fight relieved Jones of his number one spot at 175 and ‘Superman’ would never be the same force again. A man who shares Jones’s moniker, Stevenson, took Dawson’s ranking with a left hand of his own. Having now suffered back-to-back stoppage defeats, how much of a force will Dawson be from this point forward?
There were those who claimed Dawson was spent after his somewhat humiliating defeat to Ward, in which he was dropped several times and essentially quit in the tenth session. The drop down in weight had visibly weakened him though and he was expected to be back to his best at his natural limit, but as Jones’s downfall and that of many others will point out, draining your body to make weight can do permanent damage.
Whether Dawson has ravaged his punch resistance is hard to say from one minute of action. Stevenson is a knockout artist and maybe Chad was simply caught cold. But even if he hasn’t lost strength and the nightmare on Saturday evening was a blip as a result of a good shot, it’s going to be hard for Dawson to recover from the position he finds himself in now.
Where does he go from here?
He doesn’t have a rematch clause with Stevenson, though that isn’t a bad thing, a third straight knockout loss could be curtains and certainly a plausible outcome should they meet again. The big problem for Dawson is what fight can be made next. He needs a noteworthy victory to get his career back on track, but he’s hardly an attractive opponent for any noteworthy contenders right now.
As champion, anyone would have wanted to fight Dawson when he brought the WBC title to the table, but now he’s on the slide, perhaps damaged goods yet still a dangerous and tricky rival with his awkward style and southpaw stance. Given that he’s never been a crowd pleaser and drew plenty of criticism from fans and the media even when he won, Dawson’s also going to be a pretty tough sell to networks now he’s on a losing streak.
