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By Jake Donovan - It took a lot longer than expected, but it appears as if the faces at the top of the light heavyweight division are finally getting younger.
A lot of factors needed to come into play in order to make that long desired wish a reality. One was the need for new blood in the division – not just for the older guys to make way for Generation Next, but new faces to emerge as legitimate threats.
For a while, it was Chad Dawson against the division’s graybeards, having spent the past two years dealing with Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson. His roadblock came in the form of Bernard Hopkins – whom some publications kept at the top of the ratings for far too long – refusing to even acknowledge Dawson’s presence, claiming the young gun didn’t bring enough to the table to interest him in a much-demanded showdown.
Tavoris Cloud has finally emerged as a top threat, even if last weekend’s win over Johnson wasn’t quite as dominant as most would hope to have been the case, at least for those in search of new faces at the top.
But despite the old saying, it takes more than two to tango if a division is to remain healthy with noteworthy matches, especially if those two aren’t guaranteed to face each other anytime soon.
Where the division received a boost in a big way is with the emergence of a promising super middleweight who decided that an extra seven pounds to his frame would do his career a world of good.
With that decision, Jean Pascal went from diamond in the rough to budding superstar virtually overnight.
The Haitian-born, Canadian-raised has the opportunity of a lifetime to improve his Q-rating in a big way, when he faces Chad Dawson this weekend at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada (Saturday, HBO, 10:30PM ET).
It is arguably the most anticipated light heavyweight match in years for a number of reasons. It features the top two rated light heavyweights in the world, and is a rare matchup in which both sides of a major fight at 175 have yet to see their 30th birthday. [Click Here To Read More]
A lot of factors needed to come into play in order to make that long desired wish a reality. One was the need for new blood in the division – not just for the older guys to make way for Generation Next, but new faces to emerge as legitimate threats.
For a while, it was Chad Dawson against the division’s graybeards, having spent the past two years dealing with Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson. His roadblock came in the form of Bernard Hopkins – whom some publications kept at the top of the ratings for far too long – refusing to even acknowledge Dawson’s presence, claiming the young gun didn’t bring enough to the table to interest him in a much-demanded showdown.
Tavoris Cloud has finally emerged as a top threat, even if last weekend’s win over Johnson wasn’t quite as dominant as most would hope to have been the case, at least for those in search of new faces at the top.
But despite the old saying, it takes more than two to tango if a division is to remain healthy with noteworthy matches, especially if those two aren’t guaranteed to face each other anytime soon.
Where the division received a boost in a big way is with the emergence of a promising super middleweight who decided that an extra seven pounds to his frame would do his career a world of good.
With that decision, Jean Pascal went from diamond in the rough to budding superstar virtually overnight.
The Haitian-born, Canadian-raised has the opportunity of a lifetime to improve his Q-rating in a big way, when he faces Chad Dawson this weekend at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada (Saturday, HBO, 10:30PM ET).
It is arguably the most anticipated light heavyweight match in years for a number of reasons. It features the top two rated light heavyweights in the world, and is a rare matchup in which both sides of a major fight at 175 have yet to see their 30th birthday. [Click Here To Read More]
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