Rate Wards performance against Dawson out of 10

[Larry the boss]

10....................

[MurkaMan]

Dawson was clearly weight drained

don't put too much stock in that win

I told myself, if he was drained, I would place the asterisk. He had a glass jaw due to him coming down, but thats it. He was still fast, and strong. Ward was impeccable, I gave him a 10. He was aggressive, didnt get hit, combination punching, multiple knockdowns, and finished the show. It was perfect. at 175, it would be the same, just without the KO. And remember, Dawson is bigger, stronger, and faster. Ward walked him down and didnt get grazed.

[codey]

I give him a 10 for successfully completing operation seek and destroy!

[damned1974]

I gave him an 8.5...mainly because Dawson was able to catch him with uppercuts and right hooks quite a few occasions and I gave Chad the first 2 rounds.

I think the fight at 175 would have seemed that much more impressive for his legacy,but to be honest,I think it's quite possible that we would have had the same results.I remember the day of the fight most people thought Chad had no problems making weight and the general impressions and comments were "Chad is ripped", yet when he got his butt kicked and quit,we hear "Chad was drained"...hell,he looked like crump against Diaconu and Pascal-was he drained there as well-no? Consider and add to the fact that Ward is a million times the beast of those two guys,it appears that Dawson's team/fans wants to validate excuses with this fight....at least Dawson was a class act and never brought any up.

I don't think weight played a big role.It is entirely possible that Chad would have gotten knocked down even if he was at 175,because that first KD came from a lightning bolt that he never seen coming...after that,he never recovered- similar to Berto when getting knocked down by Ortiz,he just couldn't get his legs back.I think this was similar as to when he got smacked by Johnson-he just didn't seem to be 100% after getting dazed.

All in all,a brilliant performance.Ward just seems to be getting better and better against more quality opponents (the difference between him and Chad...Chad has stagnated and never corrected his flaws,but that's another story).

[Optimistic]

I'd say 9. It was a phenominal performance no doubt, but Dawson was clearly weight drained, so that takes off some of its luster for me, and prevents it from being a 10 IMO.

[110110110]

Dawson could have weighted 220, Ward would still have outsmarted,outpunched,out hustled and finally broken him down and knocked him out.

[Japanese Boxing]

Nearly perfect. 9.5.

[HardSpar]

9. Ward did his thing against a weight drained, weak willed Dawson, lost one maybe two of the first two rounds, wasn't a perfect win but very good.

[sammiza567]

7. still a good win. would have been a 9 if it would have been for chad's belt at 175. yes dawson called him out. but ward is the one people are putting up on p4p lists, yet he cant bump up to a class he said he is gonna be at soon anyways. kessler was a better win imo.

[-Kev-]

Shouldn't a 10 be 120-108 or like Mosley-Margarito where Mosley won every round and stopped Margarito? Or Something like Pacquiao-Hatton, Prescott-Khan, in which the fight was very short but the KO itself was a 10 so you should give the fight a 10.

In this case, Dawson won the first two round, and then lost the next 8 rounds and was dropped and stopped. You could give it a 8. I picked 10 by mistake BTW.