Oh no, he was exposed. Make no doubt about it. And I used Pavlik on purpose to show another far-along-in-his-career fighter to show how a guy can be exposed this late on as a pro. Pavlik never faced a guy who could move like Hopkins moved, as well as give him the Hopkins bag of tricks. Pavlik was exposed. Dawson made his name against a super weight drained Adamek and two old men. He never fought an in-his-prime guy who could move and "bring it" as Pascal can and did. And he was exposed, without a doubt. There's now something of a "book" (or even more of one, some would say) on how to attack Dawson, same as there is with Pavlik. That wasn't the case before tonight's fight.
Not even close to being exposed, 1. the pavlik vs Hopkins fight was at a weight limit Pavlik has never fought at. Dawson is a legitimate LHW. 2. Pavlik was beaten by a future atg. Pascal was beaten by Froch. 3.Dawson was being considered as p4per, Pavlik was never a p4per fighting a hopkins who is still currently regarded as a top 10 fighter. 4.Dawson vs Pascal was close, Pavlik vs hopkins was not, I give you that as far as being exposed.
Definitely exposed. And exposed much worse than I thought he could be exposed by a fighter of Pascal's level. 1. Good point 2. True 3. Good point 4. The fight wasn't close. Pascal was clowning Dawson and the only chance Dawson had at all was when Pascal slowed down after round 5 and wasn't able to stay on his toes and moving s much. Still, Pascal dominated Dawson. The fight was not far from a shut-out for Pascal, as the 108-101 judge (I had 108-102) correctly scored.
Do you really think he dominated though Paul? I am not like the others and blame the loss because Dawson had a bad night. If anything I have never seen a more aggressive Dawson. Again I would not say dominated, more like beaten by the better fighter until the rematch.
Yep, dominated. And much of why that happened is because Dawson allowed it to happen, as Manny Steward (on HBO broadcast) said: Dawson simply would not punch enough or follow-up any attacks until the 11th round and thus just handed rounds, and the fight, to Pascal. Some of the rounds were somewhat close, but overall, Pascal owned him in scoring round-by-round and adding them up.