How good was Chad Dawson?

I think he was very skilled and formidable but lacking patience and some intelligence in his career. He shouldn't have opted to go down to 168 after campaigning at 175 for as long as he had. I think he could have run light heavyweight for a couple of years before Kovalev.

 

Very good fighter with a bunch of natural talent, fast, tall and rangy and unlike some fast fighters didn't just rely on his speed alone, he had skills to go with that speed. But apparently he wasn't the most dedicated trainer and cutting corners in the end probably cost him, but he still had a very good career and garnered some very good wins. He had the talent to be a great fighter but just didn't have the work ethic required to get to that level, but then again very few do.

 

Very good two stand out convincing wins vs Hopkins, Tarver, I also feel like he would've beaten a slightly past it Calzaghe at Light Heavyweight had they fought.

 

Elite fighter but still something of an underachiever in a PfP sense. He was fun to follow in his youth but after a war against Glen Johnson became very risk averse, so most fans did not like him.

Despite being No. 1 at 175 he ended up having to go down to 168 for Ward -- which ruined him -- and also sometimes fought in his challenger's hometown for $ purposes.

I'd probably favor all of Kovalev, Stevenson, Bivol and Beterbiev against him, but the fights would have been competitive (other than Beterbiev).

 

Chad Dawson is one of my 10 favorite fighters of all time.

Chad Dawson was damn near perfect.............physically.

Every single trainer that he had pretty much in unison said that he didn't have the right mindset for greatness. Said he had no real work ethic, no motivation etc..............one of the only fighters that you could visibly see drift on and off during a fight.

Dawson is also the only fighter that Bernard went out of his way to avoid until he had no choice but to fight him so take that for what it's worth.

 

I believe his first sport was basketball and You could see He had a lot of natural talent. Was very fast, had great coordination and his punching technique was excellent as well. As others already wrote, He was never quite as good as He You'd think He should be looking at his best qualities.

After Floyd (briefly) retired, He called Chad the best fighter in the world - and there was probably opportunity at that point for Chad to become a star, but He lost to Jean Pascal soon after.
He did have some good wins though as well. He schooled Adamek for most of the fight. First Glen Johnson fight was borderline classic in my view - and although I had Glen winning the first, Chad did good job in a rematch. Tarver and Harding were past their prime, but still solid.
I don't think He should've been trying to drop down to 168, but there were no big fights at 175 for him at the time, the way I remember it.

Good Light Heavyweight champion overall, but I agree with those who said He didn't quite reach his full potential.

 

He wasn't that good. He just managed to mop up what was left from a great LHW era.

Also holds the record for the most pointless rematch in history when he fought Tarver.

 

At his best he was a very solid LHW with good hand speed and threw nice combinations. He looked great when he beat Tomasz Adamek. I recall a time when Floyd Mayweather Jr called Chad Dawson the greatest pure boxer in the sport (outside of himself of course). His main problem was his lack of killer instinct, bad chin, subpar mentality and ring IQ where he rarely fought to his full capacity. I remember when he was falling behind the scorecards against Jean Pascal he had one moment where it looked like he was about to stop an exhausted Pascal when he threw a lot of punches with mean intent but chose to not follow up for some reason. He was a fighter that couldn't be relied on. His biggest mistake was when he chose to drain himself down from 175 to 168 to fight Andre Ward and never recovered after being stopped.

Good fighter but just didn't have the drive to be greater. I don't think he would have beaten Joe Calzaghe, and I certainly wouldn't favor him against Kovalev, Bivol, or Beterbiev.

 

To be fair if I remember rightly the Pascal fight was stopped on a accidental headbutt ? Which come at a very inconvenient time for Dawson who was coming on strong, I'm not sure that was down to a lack of a killer instinct, it was more down to a inconvenience that halted Dawson's momentum in which maybe he could've scored a late stoppage.

You also say Dawson wouldn't of beaten Calzaghe but how many Southpaws did Calzaghe fight ? Especially world class ones ? 0. Calzaghe was coming towards the end of his career and didn't exactly look amazing vs Hopkins at Light Heavyweight who Dawson beat alot easier.

 

Yes the fight against Pascal was stopped due to an accidental headbutt and had the fight went on without that there would have been a chance of a late stoppage but it wasn't certain. The 9th and 11th round was where Dawson had his best chance of stopping Pascal but backed off for some reason. I remembered when Dawson countered Pascal with a good left uppercut that left him stunned and still decided to not go for the kill and ended up having the fight stopped from the headbutt. The problem was how little Dawson did early on and decided to let his hands go late but totally blew it by not turning it up sooner and it shows his lack of finishing skills.

It's true that Calzaghe hasn't beaten any top quality southpaws and didn't look all that great against Hopkins but I wouldn't use that as a reason why he wouldn't be able to beat Dawson. Hopkins is known for making fighters look bad against him, even Dawson looked terrible when he beat Hopkins and he mainly won due to his youth. I think Calzaghe from 2009 would have had a good chance because of his better ring IQ and workrate. Let's not forget that Dawson barely got by Glen Johnson and almost lost to him the first time.

Still, Calzaghe chose to retire at a time when he could have faced a prime Dawson. Perhaps he himself knew that could have lost and didn't want to suffer a defeat before retiring.

 

A bit better than Caleb Plant today

 

Was a humiliating loss for Dawson. He was the favorite and made very few adjustments...a case of too little too late. That was effectively the end of Bad Chad who was being groomed to be future PFP star (at that time). Floyd even called him PFP #1 during one of his interim retirements.

Losing to a very limited Pascal, especially in the way that he did, left dozens of questions. Then he beats old BHop before Ward and Stevenson sealed it shut.

 

We can’t make excuses for his loss to my boy Dre. He was the one who asked for Dre and said he would go down to face Dre. When Dre fought Miranda as a contender he beat him up. In my time many have had the better of me in sparring but come fight night I did a job on my opponents.

He was a very good fighter and champion and at a certain point in time he was the best Light Heavyweight in the world no doubt. He just ran into Dre which as we all know is bad for your health.