Finally a young guy beats an old guy.
Twenty-six year old Chad Dawson stayed unbeaten with a decision win over forty year-old Antonio Tarver, the same way Dawson beat Tarver last year.
The rematch differed from their first encounter in two major ways: Tarver fought a better fight on this night, and the fight provided more excitement than the first fight did. This was a sequel that provided the excitement that the first fight failed to.
Tarver, in what will likely be his last fight as a legit title contender, did have a better night than most at ringside will give him credit for. Tarver started very slow and would pick up his game in spurts for the majority of the fight having only isolated moments in round four, five, and most notably round seven where Tarver mounted his first big offensive charge of the fight.
Dawson on the other hand fought like a seasoned pro way above Tarver for the majority of the fight controlling the action, controlling the pace, and controlling the ring while landing some pretty big shots and knocking Tarver off kilter several times during the fight while keeping Tarver trapped in the corner many more times during the first 2/3 of the fight.
The final four rounds saw Tarver begin to take over the fight in a manner similar to several older fighters (most notably Bernard Hopkins) that dominated much younger fighters. Max Kellerman of HBO pointed out prior to the fight that Dawson has a tendency to crap out at the tail end of his fights; tonight was no exception. The final three rounds were rounds that Dawson basically gave away choosing to play it safe and not engage Tarver, choosing to use the speed difference between the two to out maneuver Tarver and stay away from his big shots. While both men slugged it out for most of the final round, Tarver had come alive.
While Dawson was able to steal round five after a brief Tarver comeback and make Tarver look downright bad by avoiding his punches in round nine, it was Tarver who snagged round eleven from Dawson after Dawson had started the round red hot seemingly attempting to put Tarver down. Not only would he fail, but he would also end up losing the round on my scorecard.
The fight itself was plagued by a passive aggressive attitude through most of it that saw raw aggression only come out in segments, though those segments were actually quite entertaining. The fight also saw both men—as in their first fight—choose to go with a defensive route that saw a good portion of the fight’s action be one man throwing many, many punches at his opponent, but landing few as his opponent’s defense was simply to block the shots until the barrage stopped. The majority of the time it was Dawson throwing as he landed 88 more punches and 21 more jabs than Tarver, the statistics that were the main reasoning behind Dawson’s win being by such a large margin on the judge’s scorecards.
In reality, Tarver’s spirit was on full display in those final rounds as maybe he knew they were his final rounds as a contender being so far down on the cards by that point, while Dawson showed exactly why he’s unbeaten and why he’s a champion, but also a couple little things that a younger and more active fighter could easily take advantage of.
All in all, this fight does mark a transition in the light heavyweight division with younger fighters like Dawson and Chad Johnson now fully taking the place of Tarver and recently retired Joe Calzaghe and even Bernard Hopkins to an extent in the minds of those within the boxing world.
Dawson 10 10 9 10 10 10 10 9 10 9 9 10 116
Tarver 9 9 10 9 9 9 10 10 9 10 10 10 114
