Yes, let's minimize everyone's accomplishments, while we're at it. $10,000 this is a UK patsy who bought Audley-Haye and loved every minute of it.
Sometimes, the fighters judgement is not the most reliable. Cunningham may be less talented, but he has achieved a hell of a lot more than Dawson has in his career. Where is USS's P4P ranking? He is so underrated it's criminal :-(
He also fights in a less then stellar (albeit competative) division. USS has already 2 defeats, granted one of them being a bit controversial. I will give Dawson a slight edge for now, but seeing these 2 fight would be a treat.
I scored the Wlodarczyk fight in favour of Cunningham by 3 rounds, and the Adamek fight a draw. Dawson's loss to Pascal was in no way controversial. I also believe Cunningham fought a better version of Adamek, one who's performance wasn't affected by weight draining. However you look at it, Cunningham has beaten all of the current belt holders in his division, he has one of the best Cruiserweight resumes of all time, much better than Haye's or Adameks. I don't think the Light Heavyweight division is that stellar at all, and Dawson's resume in that division certainly doesn't stand out.
His performance vs. Wlod the first time was pretty mediocre, even if you do give him the win. He should have made greater effort to fight Haye imo and he allowed Haye to become the man at CW on his watch. After trying to rumble with Adamek, his ring IQ should also be questioned. I'm sure that's not what his trainer wanted. Cunningham has flaws in his game and if Dawson brings his A game, they could be exploited. To me its a 50-50 toss up, at whatever weight.