by David P. Greisman
 
No one expects Antonio Tarver to do anything quietly.
 
He has never been a shrinking violet, a wallflower, a supporting character content with his secondary role. Instead, he has been charismatic when cast as the hero, defiant when dubbed the villain, and loquacious whenever the cameras are on, the microphones are near and the topic involves him.
 
And so it was his quiet that spoke volumes.
 
There was little of the usual bluster, less of the verbal swagger from Tarver in the months before his rematch with light heavyweight beltholder Chad Dawson. That was not the case when the two first met, when Tarver had a title around his waist and could still claim to be of consequence in their division.
 
It was Dawson who had given up a title belt of his own to challenge Tarver, Dawson who sought to capture the shine off one of the men who had ruled the division. That recognition had been traded between Tarver, Joe Calzaghe, Bernard Hopkins, Glen Johnson, and Roy Jones Jr., five fighters who took in the large paydays but were either approaching 40 years old or already past  it.
 
While they reigned, Chad Dawson rose through the ranks, first as a prospect plying his trade at middleweight and super middleweight, then as a talented young fighter who would jump to 175, defeat veteran Eric Harding and then go on to do the same against Tomasz Adamek. The Adamek victory earned Dawson his world title. Beating Tarver, he thought, would bring him to the next level.
 
Tarver bristled at the notion of being Dawson’s stepping stone. He thought himself still to be the mountain looming over the land.
 
In their first meeting, Dawson, 14 years Tarver’s junior, was faster of hand and fleeter of feet, strafing him with combinations and then moving out of harm’s way. Even in rounds when Dawson was clearly taking a break, he would let Tarver throw at will and then mock him for his inability to hurt him.
 
Younger. Faster. Better.
 
Tarver, suddenly, was quieter.
 
He had leverage at the bargaining table. For the right to face him once, Tarver had the option of facing Dawson again. Soon after the October unanimous decision loss, Tarver exercised his contractual rematch. They would meet again.
 
Perhaps Tarver’s seeming civility came from a case of humility. Or maybe he was coolly confident, intent to let his fists do the talking, as they had three times before in such situations.
 
Harding. Jones. Johnson. Each defeated Tarver by decision once. They would not do so twice.
 
Tarver avenged the Harding loss in 2002, two years after the fact, via stoppage. He erased the Jones defeat in 2004, half a year after they first met, with a one-punch knockout. And he outpointed Johnson in 2005, six months after their initial bout, outworking him over 12 rounds.
 
Every time Tarver had a chance at a rematch, a shot at revenge, he came through. His reputation preceded him. Could he succeed once again?
 
Not this time.
 
After 12 rounds, the scorecards had Dawson ahead by nearly the same margins as before. In October, they read 118-109 and 117-110 (twice). This time, the judges’ tallies came to 117-111 (twice) and 116-112.
 
The fight itself looked similar. In their first meeting, Dawson had thrown 657 punches, landing 236, while Tarver connected with 226 of his 897 shots. Again, Tarver threw more punches than Dawson, sending out 749 shots but landing just 121. Dawson put forth 677 punches, landing 209.
 
After Tarver’s first fight with Roy Jones, he admitted to being caught occasionally watching his opponent’s hand speed. Against Dawson, Tarver often would wait to throw until his foe was finished. Dawson did the same, strategically avoiding exchanges.
 
But Dawson’s shots were crisper and harder. He dug into the body and then followed up top. Dawson dictated the pace early, landing more telling blows, while Tarver would throw as much but, through three, had only connected with 16 shots.
 
There would be no single-punch knockout, no reliance on power. But Tarver wasn’t about to roll over and surrender. He would not go out with a bang, but he would not go out with a whimper either.
 
There were a few rounds Tarver clearly won, when he found the energy within his 40-year-old body to go for a full three minutes. Yes, he had already been throwing more punches than Dawson. But he also needed to apply enough pressure to close the gap, to slow Dawson down.
 
He didn’t do enough.
 
When the verdict was read, Tarver remained standing, like a defendant who had just heard the sentence and now understood his fate. He walked away without comment – the cameras and the microphones were on Dawson.
 
There was little shame in losing. It was but a defeat, not a drubbing.
 
Others leave boxing too late, taking too much punishment, falling short against fighters who previously  never belonged in the same ring as them, embarrassing themselves as shells of what they once were because they either do not know that it is over or cannot accept that they’ve reached the end.
 
If this is the end for Tarver, then it’s a fitting conclusion.
 
He began his run through the division at the turn of the century, working his way toward a shot at Jones until he was unavoidable. Jones returned from capturing a heavyweight title to take on Tarver, then, after winning closely and with controversy, faced Tarver again. Tarver took his fate into his own left hand and was on top from there.
 
He earned a role in Rocky Balboa, playing Mason “The Line” Dixon, essentially a version of himself, opposite Sylvester Stallone’s title character. Then he returned to reality, handing over the reins of the division with a loss to Bernard Hopkins.
 
Tarver stuck around since then, winning three fights before the pair of losses to Dawson. His return to contention meant he hadn’t stuck around for too long. That may not be true if he attempts to rise again.
 
To retire now would be the quiet way out. No one expects Antonio Tarver to do anything quietly. But there are plenty of outlets with cameras and microphones. And there’s always room in boxing for a man who can speak.

The 10 Count  

1.  I got into boxing in the late ‘80s for two reasons: Mike Tyson, and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.
 
I was young. Tyson was still the baddest man on the planet. And he had his name and likeness attached to a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!!”
 
I don’t get nostalgic about much from that decade. Not for slap bracelets. Not for the music. And not for the Baltimore Orioles’ 0-21 start to the 1988 season.
 
But Little Mac, King Hippo and Soda Popinski? Count me in.
 
And count me as thrilled that Punch-Out is coming back, this time for the Nintendo Wii. It’s due in stores next week. Tyson won’t be in the game, but players have the option either of using the Wii controller as an old-school Nintendo controller, using the controllers’ motion sensors to throw punches or buying boxing gloves that have the controls within.
 
I’m about to get a lot less work done… 

2.  Paulie Malignaggi stars as Little Mac in a two-minute commercial for the new Punch-Out. Find it by going to YouTube and typing in “Little Mac.” A good treat for those with Nintendo nostalgia, an extra layer of laughs for those of us who follow boxing, too.
 
Malignaggi joins Floyd Mayweather Jr. as the second boxer to be in a good commercial this year. Mayweather, still retired at the time, was featured in a 30-second spot for AT&T’s LaptopConnect device. 

3.  I guess this is where I admit I could never beat Punch-Out. All these years later, I still have nightmares about Mr. Sandman… 

4.  Amazingly, I think Saturday’s rematch between Chad Dawson and Antonio Tarver wasn’t even Saturday’s biggest box-office bust, despite those empty seats visible within the camera frame.
 
No, I imagine that dishonor would have to belong to a bout between Hector Camacho Sr., now 46 and more than 12 years removed from his win over Sugar Ray Leonard, and Yori Boy Campas, a 37-year-old with 106 pro fights who may have more miles on him than Lance Armstrong.
 
Camacho-Campas aired on pay-per-view, I’m told, though I don’t actually know of anyone who paid for it. The bout was supposed to take place in Atlantic City, but the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board refused to sanction the bout, reportedly because it was not willing to license Camacho to box.
 
Instead of postponing a bout that was less than a week away, the Camacho-Campas card ended up at the DoubleTree Hotel just outside of Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla. It had one undercard bout, and the main event itself ended, in a rather poetic conclusion, as a draw. 

5.  Did you order the Camacho-Campas pay-per-view? E-mail me at fightingwords1(at)gmail.com. We’ll find you the help you need. I promise. 

6.  Boxers Behaving Badly: Former super-middleweight titlist Davey Hilton Jr. is back in trouble again, appearing in court on charges stemming from yet another alleged incident involving his longtime girlfriend.
 
Hilton, 45, allegedly got in an argument with the woman before grabbing her and threatening her with a knife, according to the Montreal Gazette. He’s been charged with “assault causing bodily harm, armed assault, uttering death threats and breaking his court-ordered release conditions,” according to the newspaper.
 
Hilton, convicted in 2001 of sexually abusing two teenage girls, was freed earlier this year after serving close to eight years in prison. He was nearly arrested again while in jail for refusing to sign a document agreeing to stay away from youths under 16 for the next year. He ultimately signed.
 
Hilton’s victims, his daughters, had been abused between 1995 and 1998. After their father was incarcerated, they revealed their identities.
 
His girlfriend had charged him with assaulting her twice before. The most recent case came in January, when he was acquitted on charges of assault and sexual assault after the woman decided she no longer wanted to press charges and a judge found there to be no evidence in the case.
 
Hilton was released on parole in 2006 and served out much of the rest of his sentence in a halfway house. His last bout before then had come in 2000, the title-winning split-decision over Dingaan Thobela. But Hilton, who had turned pro in 1981, returned to the ring in 2007 and went 10 rounds in a victory over some dude named Adam Green. That raised his record to 41-2-2 (26 knockouts). 

7.  Manny Being Manny: Suffice it to say, the past 10 days can be summarized quite simply – good for Pacquiao, bad for Ramirez. 

8.  A quick correction: In last week’s column I referenced the times in Las Vegas, the Philippines and Manchester, England, when Manny Pacquiao scored his sensational knockout victory over Ricky Hatton. The problem? In an early edition of the column, long since corrected, I had the wrong times for both the Philippines and Manchester.
 
I regret the error, and, like Flavor Flav, I’ve started wearing three clocks around my neck to keep from making the same mistake again. 

9.  How nice of me to feed into the stereotype that Americans don’t know geography. What was it that Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 said when asked why one-fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map? Oh yeah:
 
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., should help South Africa, and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future.”
 
Brilliant. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

10.  Ah, yes, stereotypes of what Americans are truly like. Hordes of hungry people  flocking to KFC fast-food restaurants because of an offer for a free grilled-chicken meal. Quotes such as these from a woman turned away from a non-participating restaurant in Baltimore:
 
“I’m a big girl,” Shannon Edwards was quoted as saying to a WBAL television crew. “I like to eat. So I’m kind of disappointed I have to go to McDonald’s now.”
 
Give us your  poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free. Streets paved with gold, and free grilled chicken.

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com