Vintage... Pavlik?

[MRBOOMER]

Yeah, him and chad dawson would be greats but never had the ring IQ

I don't think Dawson lacked ring iq so much as he had no killer instinct to hurt people and made fights harder on him self. I've seen some knock outs but it's like after Ademak it all changed.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

I don't think Dawson lacked ring iq so much as he had no killer instinct to hurt people and made fights harder on him self. I've seen some knock outs but it's like after Ademak it all changed.

No, chad dawson was dumb as ***** in the ring... He had great skills, but very predictable..

[billeau2]

I don't think Dawson lacked ring iq so much as he had no killer instinct to hurt people and made fights harder on him self. I've seen some knock outs but it's like after Ademak it all changed.

In the olympics with the limited time, the rules, etc generally fighters don't have a lot of options when it comes to long range plans, exposing weaknesses of an opponent, and changing strategy midstream in a match. In professional prize fighting when guys don't adapt in the ring and have major weaknesses they can be exposed.

Dawson was an athletic marvel but, while I would hesitate to call him dumb, he showed he was limited technically. While everyone wants to say Dawson was drained for the Ward fight, the way Ward beat him was to set him up brilliantly...nothing to do with weight problems. This showed other fighters the way to beat Dawson.

Actually if we don't assume Jones was past it then in many respects Tarver having the anger, the drive, to just ignore Roy's feints and make Roy back up (Roy never had to use angles) may have been a similar seminal event. Roy never had to back up and like Ali when he did occasionally he did so straight back. After Ali lost to Frazier this way it affected him...Ali could adapt in the ring in this respect, Jones and Dawson could not.

people just were too enamored of Dawson's gifts to see that he might have problems if he could not rely exclusively on these gifts. Ward showed that against a guy who was really A-1 Dawson was lacking.

[billeau2]

No, chad dawson was dumb as ***** in the ring... He had great skills, but very predictable..

Ademak = a pressure fighter. Again to use jones... He got beat and then had a nice back and fourth with Tarver who is a boxer puncher... he then got put to sleep by Glencoff, a pressure guy. What most people tend to forget is that while jones and Tarver was a back and fourth affair after the big punch in the second fight, Johnson beat Jones much more convincingly by simply applying pressure in a manner that Tarver could not. Dawson, like jones, cracked under that pressure from ademak...no mystery there.

Cotto versus Margarito first fight...handwraps be damned! Cotto is looking spectacular when suddenly margarito starts walking through his shots and Cotto is unable to keep him off, tie him up at least....winds up getting destroyed. While Cotto is not a finesse guy the point is that a good pressure fighter will find a ch1nk in the armour, and when one cannot adjust to this constant pressure the end is inevitable. Dawson turned out to be unable as a professional to make the kind of adjustments in the ring necessary to deal with pressure.

[LuisConcepcion]

Pavlik vs GGG would be nothing short of truly epic

[ShoulderRoll]

I was so impressed with how Pavlik weathered the storm and won the belt off Jermain Taylor in their first fight. Then when he won the rematch I thought for sure he would be around a long time.

Wish he would have fought Arthur Abraham when that bout was hot, he would have won conclusively in my opinion and his momentum would have gone through the roof. It's a shame that he didn't live up to all his potential.

Regarding Chad Dawson...he was a great athlete with damn good skills (especially when he was with Floyd Sr) and managed to collect some pretty big scalps on his resume. Hopkins, Tarver, prime Adamek. Another guy that could have accomplished so much more than he did.