Earlier thoughts on Dawson-Tarver??

[Chunk..]

Interesting match-up. Tarver definitely has the experience and the resume against better opposition, which would favor him. Dawson is young and hungry to be on top, which is his fuel for victory. I think this is a fight that could easily go either way, especially if one executes his fight plan over the other as intended. If I truly had to pick one, then I would probably go with Dawson.

With Tarver being slower, Dawson will need to use his speed and be the aggressor, coming at Tarver from all angles. Tarver doesn't really fight well, when someone is attacking him. If you notice, most of Tarver's opponents are always "waiting" to find spots to attack, which is just fine for the older, Tarver. Dawson wins, if he puts pressure on Tarver.

Now, Tarver could win just as well against Dawson. For Tarver to win though, he would have to put on what would be a very boring permance to use fight fans. He would have to use his jab to control the pace of the fight and do a lot of holding, when things are not going his way.... similiar to the Johnson-Tarver 2 match. Unfortunately, that plan would make for 48 minutes of boredom.

I hope Dawson puts him away, and i think he will.

[Silencers]

I think Dawson's key in this fight is to apply pressure using his speed and combinations because as Roy Jones said, Tarver can't handle speed anymore and Muriqi managed to give Tarver a lot of problems by pressuring him, I don't think Tarver has the legs to move around like he used to.

What Dawson has to be careful about is Tarver's counter punches because Tarver still has very good power and Dawson's chin is somewhat fragile but if he doesn't get caught and sticks to his gameplan, Dawson should be able to a win a clear decision.

[Dan...]

I think Dawson's superior hand speed and punch output will be too much for Tarver to overcome. Dawson UD.

I also question how much Antonio has left to give at this point.

[Hitman932]

this is dawson's fight easily, wide UD

i don't see tarver as having big power, people keep mentioning it but woods walked through clean punches for 12 rounds and dawson will surely take less of them that that slow piece of ****.

tarver is lazy and wants to stand around and counter, dawson is a young hungry fighter, anyone who picks taver will look back and think "what was i thinking?"


ps. up to 30k on dawson right now

[Hitman932]

i just want tarver to loose!!! maybe dawson will look better than he did with johnson...

bottom line dawson won the fight and it was hardly a robbery

and johnson would knock antonio tarver out