Easy. He drained himself and paid the price. Although I think he was never quite as good as many (including myself) thought he was.
Has essentially lost 3 in a row (a true tune up KO1 win in between) with each of them being horrible for different reasons. Loss to Ward was bad because he got beat down after draining down. Loss to Adonis was bad because he got 1 punched by Adonis Stevenson. Loss to Karpency was bad because Karpency has never been anywhere close to a relevant fighter... Dawson is in an awful position right now. I've always felt he was underrated in terms of his accomplishments and is so to this day. Got to remember he beat Hopkins, Adamek, Tarver X2, G. Johnson X2. Those 6 victories of his dwarf most of the active great fighters' 6 best career victories... And to think of how far he has fallen.
I think Dawson is not in it mentally anymore, but he can comeback if he wants to. He didn't even try it against Karpency, it was a lazy performance by Dawson, no hunger at all, he concentrated on doing as little as possible just to get a win by his standards and paid the price. Right now he needs to rematch Karpency and win convincingly. Who's his training team? it seems he has new people
It's all mental with him, this has been confirmed by Eddie Mustafa, Iceman, Floyd Sr. and Emmanuel Steward. His head is just completely somewhere else. I think Chad is the definition of a great talent who's mind is somewhere else. Damn shame that's my favorite fighter too. :-(
:nod I'm not sure why people are surprised by his collapse. Literally every coach he ever worked under called it after their relationship dissolved (and it was always on bad terms, and his fault)
True, he left Steward and claimed 'Steward was trying to turn me into another Tommy Hearns' to each his own i guess.
:deal I thought he fought well under Eddie Mustafa actually, but as you mentioned didn't last too long.