He was a very good fighter at his best, probably wins a WBA regular title, wouldn't keep it for long though with Stevenson and Kovalev at the top. He would have always been in and around the top guys but not good enough to dethrone them.
The Mayweather Sr.-trained Dawson that beat Adamek would fare very well against any of the current light-heavyweights.
He matches up poorly with Kovalev, Beterbiev, and Adonis stylistically but Kovalev and Ward may be the only two I would pick to defeat him as of now.
adamek almost got him out of there late, stevenson and kovalev wipe the floor with any version of him.
Chad in 2007 was very different from the Chad you saw against Hopkins, Ward, and Stevenson. I'll say this, Chad would be undefeated today had he just stuck with one trainer throughout his career or at least Floyd Sr. He was that good, unfortunately Chad is mentally weak and has a poor attitude which is evident by the amount of trainers he's been through (the main reason for his downfall). Also Kovalev and Stevenosn do not have Adamek's chin, they can be hurt and the amount of amount of punches Chad was landing on Adamek, Kovalev and Stevenson would not survive the onslaught.
Ward effectively destroyed this guy's career by weight draining him into oblivion. He was never the same again after moving back up in weight. He suffered the same fate as RJJ who also ****ed up with his weight and became a chump overnight
Chad in his prime matches very well against three since they have no defense, Chad would just simply tag them for 12 rounds straight. Although I would say Adonis has the best defense of those three. Also Chad has an underrated chin, he went 12 rounds with Glen Johnson and was never knocked down, took Jean Pascal's best punches for 11 rounds (and there were nasty shots that landed) and was never knocked down, went 12 rounds with Hopkins with two cuts in his eyes and was still able to win the fight. He's a tough fighter. Yeah he got knocked out in one round against Stevenson, but by that time Chad's confidence was at an all time low, which was very evident by his body language, and his skills eroded so badly by that point. He didn't even look prepared against Stevenson, it looked like he didn't even care.
Actually Chad's career was over after the Hopkins fight, yeah he beat Hopkins, but he barely s****ped by. If you ask Hopkins today who won the fight between him and Dawson, he will say he did, and it's to argue against him. I think that ate Chad up. Ward simply beat what was left of Dawson, which was not much. Chad should have stuck with Emanuel Steward for the Hopkins fight, he made a grave error hiring John Scully who's not a bad trainer, but not the right trainer to prepare him for Hopkins. Dawson kept switching trainers all the time, some of them helped him progress as a boxer, some of them didn't help him at all and was worse off then before in most cases.
