Dawson makes a statement against Johnson

By Joseph Santoliquito, RING BLOG

HARTFORD, Conn. – Chad Dawson was looking for the chance to show what he is truly capable of, the chance to show he’s indeed the No. 1 light heavyweight in the world.

While Glen Johnson had fans crying on his shoulder in airports, lamenting his controversial loss to “Bad Chad” in April of last year, Dawson was stuck with an Antonio Tarver rematch that no one wanted to see and would prove very little. And Bernard Hopkins didn’t show any interest in Dawson (“Who’s Chad Dawson, why would I want to fight him, he’s not a name,” Hopkins once said).

Maybe it’s time “The Executioner” reconsider. Maybe it’s time boxing take a closer look at Dawson.

Dawson (29-0, 17 knockouts) came closer to delivering a more robust side of himself before 5,230 Saturday night at Hartford’s XL Center. He pelted the 40-year-old Johnson with a variety of rights and lefts, from all kinds of angles. He tripled-up, sometimes quadrupled-up his jab. He was emphatic, accurate and even sporadically exciting in dismantling a wily veteran who suddenly looked his age.



The southpaw’s dominating performance was enough to win on all three judge’s scorecards, getting a 117-111 verdict from Glenn Feldman, while somehow Duane Ford and Michael Pernick saw a closer fight, each giving Dawson a 115-113 decision. THE RING was more in line with Feldman, scoring it 118-110 for Dawson.

Entering the night, Hopkins carried THE RING’s 175-pound No. 1 ranking. By the end, that’s an arguable distinction.

This rematch was nowhere near as close as the first fight. Dawson was never in any trouble against Johnson (49-13-2, 33 KOs), controlling the fight from start to finish.

It could’ve been a case of Johnson aging rapidly because he seemed terribly slow at times, unable to hit Dawson with punches that connected in their first meeting 19 months ago.

It also could’ve been a case of a more-confident Dawson wanting to make a statement. Johnson picked up the pace in the sixth round, his best to that point, but Dawson was still more effective throughout.

There were times when Dawson fell into his comfort zone, flicking his jab instead putting his weight behind his punches. The pro-Dawson crowd even booed in the seventh. But Dawson quickly changed the pace, strafing Johnson once again in the eighth with a machine-run jab and heavy punches to the body. All Johnson was able to do was paw at the 27 year old.

There was a little one-upmanship between the ninth and 10th rounds, when Dawson refused to give ground to Johnson after the bell ended the round, allowing Johnson back into his corner.

Dawson can still be a maddening tease, jarring opponents, rocking them back -- then letting up. There were still some cases of that against Johnson Saturday night, especially in the 10th, when he had Johnson on the defensive and then walked away. Think a poor-man’s Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a larger package.

Afterward, Johnson left his future in boxing open. He didn’t dispute the decision, as he did so vehemently the first time he met Dawson.

“I’m not sure I won the fight, but I thought I did enough, especially in the late runs,” Johnson said afterwards “He started running and I wanted to slow him down with body shots. I don’t know whether I’ll retire or not. I’ll see what phone calls I get and what makes sense. If nothing comes up worthwhile, I’ll retire. My whole game was to put pressure on him from the start. I thought I could run him out of gas, which I thought he was at the end.”

Dawson, fighting his home state, has the ability to be a much more pleasing fighter. He showed signs of that Saturday night.

“I tried to use all of the tools to my advantage tonight,” Dawson said. “I tried to land the big punches when I had to. It was important for me to put on a show for my hometown fans. I knew I couldn’t stay in there and get hit.”

But can Dawson ever change? Can he break that dominating, but not-pleasing tag?

“I think that’s who Chad Dawson is, I compare him to Mayweather, and I think he’s in the Top 5 pound for pound,” said Gary Shaw, Dawson’s promoter. “He has lightning-fast hands, I just don’t understand why he doesn’t walk someone down. I still don’t think he has the confidence to take people out.”

In the other televised bout, Alfredo Angulo stopped the game, but clearly overmatched Harry Joe Yorgey at 1:03 of the third round for some bogus junior middleweight alphabet interim title.

Yorgey (22-1-1, 10 KOs) did a nice job in the opening round, showing good movement early. He struck Angulo with a few jabs and, after striking, boxed well enough to got out of the way.

By the second round, the stalking Angulo (17-1, 14 KOs) found a comfortable distance. He trapped Yorgey against the ropes and clubbed him on the side of the head with a big right hand that got Yorgey in serious trouble. Yorgey finally fell under a barrage of rights. As the round continued, Yorgey was clearly out on his feet, stumbling behind referee John Callas, who didn’t see the trouble he was in.

Angulo landed 52 of 81 power shots in the second round alone, and had connected on 58 of 108 through the first two rounds.

Smelling blood and a fighter on wobbly legs, Angulo went in for the kill in the third, bashing Yorgey with a left hook to the chin and right to the head that dropped Yorgey for good. Callas finally waved it off, looking down at the unconscious Yorgey.

“Once I started hurting him to the body, I knew the fight was going to be over,” Angulo said through a translator. “That’s when he put his hands down. That’s when I hurt him the most. That’s what started and finished this fight.”

“I felt I won the first round, and I was beating him to the punch, but he kept coming,” a rather groggy Yorgey said afterward. “It was a shot to the back of the head that hurt me in the second round.”

Yorgey’s camp felt Angulo should have been disqualified when their fighter was hit twice while he was on the ground.

Joseph Santoliquito is the managing editor of THE RING magazine.

Source: ringtv.com

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Video: Dawson vs Johnson II

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BOXING: In and out of ring, Pacquiao inspires

By Robert Morales, Daily News

If Manny Pacquiao becomes any more popular, he won't be able to sneeze without an adoring fan offering to hold a handkerchief for him.

Bill Caplan, a longtime publicist who works for Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, was at Los Angeles International Airport two weeks ago when Pacquiao arrived from his native Philippines to continue training for next Saturday's welterweight title fight against Miguel Cotto at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Several hundred fans - mostly Filipinos - showed up to greet him.

But, Caplan said, "It was pandemonium like there were thousands, the way they rushed him. As soon as he appeared coming out of customs, they swarmed him. It was like the Beatles."

Caplan said Pacquiao escaped injury because airport security helped get him to a waiting car. It was so crazy, Caplan said, television reporters waiting to interview Pacquiao had to settle for his trainer, Freddie Roach.

"Even Mike Tyson didn't have the drawing power that Manny Pacquiao has right now," said Roach, who briefly trained Tyson. "Mike was always the biggest guy training and the attention was always there at the airports. But the way Manny Pacquiao arrived the other day, I never saw a crowd like that.

"People were swarming to try to get a touch or a look at Manny Pacquiao."

American talk shows have taken notice because Pacquiao this week was a guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." It seemed like every few seconds the personable Pacquiao wore an infectious grin.

"He brightens up a room," Roach said. "He's got class and a great smile. Manny Pacquiao is an endearing person and a great fighter."

Arum has promoted two other fighters who became ultra-popular, Muhammad Ali and Oscar De La Hoya. Pacquiao's acclaim is unsurpassed even by those two, Arum said.

"Ali was a proponent of a political position and also became a spokesman for the civil rights movement at the time when it was really emerging into everybody's vision," Arum said, "particularly his stance on the Vietnam War and when he came back to fight, people just idolized him.

"Manny Pacquiao does not have that major political statement because he is not controversial. But he is engaged in politics in the Philippines and everything that he does is very pro-humanity, so he is rather loved by people in the Philippines, the United States and all over the world."

Arum said even Ali didn't cause the type of frenzy Pacquiao does, and De La Hoya was behind both of them.

"As far as Oscar is concerned, Oscar was popular in the United States," Arum said. "He was good-looking, he was charismatic and he was a good fighter. Now, that made him a lot of money but around the world he didn't have the recognition of either Ali or Manny."

Pacquiao recently won the Gusi Peace Prize in the Philippines. It is the Asian version of the Nobel Peace Prize, and Pacquiao was the first athlete to receive it.

Pacquiao has been helping the people in his country for years. He continued that trend when he was training in Baguio City when the recent typhoons hit Manila and caused death and destruction.

Pacquiao made the two-hour drive from the mountains of Baguio City to assist in the recovery, even though Roach really did not want him to.

"When the typhoon hit Manila pretty hard, Manny went down there on a Sunday to help the people out and I asked him not to go because I thought it was dangerous," Roach said. "But it was his day off and he went to Manila and helped as much as he could.

"When the second typhoon hit, we kind of took charge a little bit and we went and spoke to the people and tried to put a smile on their faces and we gave them a message from Manny, of course. But I made Manny stay in the hotel so he was safe, so there were no problems because his fight was getting closer. He is so well-loved in his country and he wants to help the people and the people love him for that."

When Pacquiao was asked during a recent interview how the typhoons affected him, his sincerity was obvious.

"I felt so bad," he said. "I do have to focus on my training because I have to prepare. But I try to help the people in my country as much as I can."

Pacquiao is featured this week in a five-page story of Time magazine. The Asian edition has him on the cover.

"I absolutely had no idea that when I started my career in boxing, to provide a better life for myself and my family, that I would now be where I am today and on the cover of Time magazine," Pacquiao said. "A fighter's dream is to win a world title and gain financial stability.

"But what is happening to me now is the most humbling experience of my life."

And well-deserved.

"Manny Pacquiao is the most exciting fighter on Earth at this moment," said Howard Chua-Eoan, Time magazine director and co-author of the story. "But not just because of his skills in the ring. When he fights, he is carrying the hopes and dreams of an entire nation.

"He fights for his people. It is one of the most inspiring stories in sports today."



Feeling robbed, Johnson gets rematch with Dawson

It was April 2008, and Chad Dawson ventured into Tampa, Fla., and defended his light heavyweight championship with a unanimous decision over Glen Johnson. Johnson lives in Miami — about 275 miles to the southeast — so it was looked upon as somewhat of a hometown fight for Johnson, especially since Dawson is from New Haven, Conn.

Even though each judge had Dawson winning by four points, Johnson said he was robbed.

"I did the more convincing job to win the last fight," said Johnson, who tonight will get a rematch when he takes on Dawson in the main event at XL Center in Hartford, Conn. It will be televised on HBO. "Chad Dawson moves a lot and just tried to throw punches at my defense.

"He threw too many ineffective punches, and so based on that I believe I won the fight clearly. If the rules have changed, then someone needs to tell me so I know how to fight for the judges."

Johnson, a former world champion, is 49-12-2 with 33 knockouts.

It's not the first time he has said he was ripped off on a decision.

But Gary Shaw, Dawson's promoter, is sick of Johnson's bellyaching.

"I'm tired of hearing Glen talk about the judges and the wrongs in boxing," Shaw said. "Every article I read about Glen, he talks about the wrongs in boxing like he's the savior of boxing. Chad Dawson won the fight in front of the eyes of all the officials.

"And I want to remind everyone that the fight was in Florida and fought in front of the Florida Commission judges. The judges were not crooked. I've seen plenty of robberies and this was not one of them."

Dawson (28-0, 17 KOs) has yet to taste defeat, and is considered by many the top 175-pound fighter in the world as well as a borderline top 10 pound-for-pound fighter.

In Dawson's mind, there is no question as to whether he won the first time around against Johnson. He vows to do it again.

"I know I won the last fight," he said. "I'm done talking about the last fight. I'm just ready to go into this one and win this one more convincingly than the last one."

The main undercard fight will feature Alfredo Angulo (16-1, 13 KOs) of Coachella against Harry Joe Yorgey (22-0-1, 10 KOs) of Bridgeport, Pa. They will tangle for an interim junior middleweight title.

Source: dailynews.com

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Chad Dawson looks forward to rematch with Glen Johnson, so he says

By Brett Okamoto, Las Vegas Sun

For the fourth time in the last 19 months, 27-year-old Chad Dawson will face an opponent this weekend that is at least 13 years his elder.

That was the case when he defeated Glen Johnson by unanimous decision in April 2008. It was the case when he defeated Antonio Tarver convincingly twice in the span of six months.

And it will be the case again on Saturday, when Dawson (28-0, 17 KO) is set to face Johnson in a rematch at XL Center in Hartford, Conn.

According to Dawson, facing fighters who are arguably past their primes remains a challenge, one that he looks forward to again.

“Why do it again? Glen Johnson is the No. 3 ranked light heavyweight out there,” said Dawson over a teleconference. “I can’t get the Bernard Hopkins fight, so why not do it again? It was a great fight and I’m looking forward to the second fight.”

Unfortunately for the undefeated Dawson, rematches with over-the-hill opponents may be the best he can hope for at this point.

Hopkins continues to pursue other options. Joe Calzaghe doesn’t appear to be coming out of retirement. Roy Jones Jr. is looking more and more like the 40-year-old he is.

As much as Dawson tries to seem excited on facing Johnson a second time, there’s an obvious rise in his voice when even the notion of an increase in competition is brought up — such as taking the place of Jermain Taylor in Showtime’s Super Six Tournament.

“I think it’s a great idea, I’ve asked Gary (Shaw, Dawson’s promoter) a few times about the tournament,” Dawson said. “It JT happens to drop out I would love to take his spot.”

Of course, for Dawson it’s never that easy. According to Shaw, HBO owns the option on Dawson’s next fight, making him a long shot for replacing Taylor — if Taylor even drops out at all.

Shaw believes that if Dawson continues to fight — he’s already expressed interest in retiring since long training camps in Las Vegas keeps him from his family in Connecticut — he could eventually add weight to his frame and move to the heavyweight division.

“As Chad gets older and puts on weight, he’ll be the heavyweight champion in my eyes,” Shaw said.

To put things into perspective, WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko weighed in for his last three fights at 251, 230.5 and 253.5 pounds — meaning Dawson would have to add around 60 pounds to his comfortable fighting weight.



One thing Dawson could do to help his case is to deliver a spectacular knockout on Saturday.

Knockouts earn fans, which means more financial leverage in trying to negotiate a deal with Hopkins.

The soft-spoken Dawson has never been the type of fighter to search for the knockout however, although he has expressed a desire to win Saturday’s fight convincingly after Johnson complained about the judges’ scoring in their first meeting.

“My expectations for the first fight where I knew it was going to be a war,” Dawson said, who won the first fight by 117-11 on two scorecards and 116-112 on the third. “I’m looking for the same thing in this fight and I want to win it convincingly.”

Not to say Saturday’s rematch can’t turn into a close fight, as Johnson is a former light heavyweight champion and still believes he deserved to win their first encounter.

But even Johnson himself couldn’t help but sound like an old fighter as he commented on the rematch.

“This fight means a lot to me because it will let me know where I’m at,” Johnson said. “I am 40 years old and I’m fighting Dawson who is a young man. It’s been well-documented that he’s the most talented super-middle, light heavy, cruiserweight out there. Therefore it’s really going to let me know where I am.

“That’s the most important thing.”

Brett Okamoto can be reached at 948-7817 or brett.okamoto@lasvegassun.com.

Source: lasvegassun.com

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Bernard Fernandez: Yorgey facing biggest fight

By Bernard Fernandez, Philadelphia Daily News

THE NOV. 14 MEGAFIGHT between WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-1, 27 KOs) and Manny Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KOs) is November's must-see event, but there is a wide variety of options for discerning fight fans to choose from this Saturday.

Let's start with the HBO Championship Boxing doubleheader from Hartford, Conn., the main event of which pits Chad Dawson (28-0, 17 KOs) against veteran Glen Johnson (49-12-2, 33 KOs) for the WBC interim light-heavyweight championship.

As appealing as that matchup is, devoted supporters of Bridgeport, Pa., junior middleweight Harry Joe Yorgey (22-0-1, 10 KOs) will focus more on his lead-in bout with Mexico's Alfredo Angulo (16-1, 13 KOs), probably the sternest test the former Upper Merion High running back has faced.

Yorgey for years was a strictly-local attraction, filling small rooms in and around his hometown for small purses against lower-echelon opponents. But the married father of four dared to believe he was a big fish in a small pond who, if given the chance, could swim with bigger fish with sharper teeth.

Thanks to his ShoBox-televised ninth-round knockout of Ronald Hearns, son of the legendary Thomas Hearns, on March 28 in Miami, Okla., Yorgey gets a crack at Angulo, whose meteoric rise to the top of the rankings was slowed on May 30 when he dropped a 12-round unanimous decision to Kermit Cintron. Angulo has since taken out Gabriel Rosado in two rounds.

Yorgey is ranked No. 4 by the WBC and No. 5 by the WBO; Angulo's highest ratings are from the same organizations, only reversed. Much more is on the line for each fighter than the vacant WBO Inter-Continental junior middleweight title belt.

"This is a potentially life-changing fight for me and my family," said Yorgey, 31, a former construction worker who quit his day job a couple of years ago to concentrate on boxing. "I'm going to grab this opportunity by the throat and take care of business."

Another local favorite on his way to wider recognition is North Philadelphia welterweight Mike Jones (18-0, 15 KOs), who is rated seventh by the WBA. Jones puts his NABA 147-pound title on the line Saturday against Colombia's Raul Pinzon (16-3-0, 15 KOs) at Bally's Atlantic City.

Jones-Pinzon won't be televised, but you can catch the action via the Internet on gofightlive.tv.

If you're looking for something more exotic than homeboys Yorgey and Jones, some pay-per-view outlets are making available Saturday's heavyweight title bout in Nuremberg, Germany, between Russian giant Nicolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KOs), the WBA champion, and London's David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs).

At 6-3 and 215 or so pounds, Haye is the David who is giving away nearly a foot in height and 110 pounds to Valuev's hulking Goliath.

But the combat-sport attraction guaranteed to draw Saturday's biggest audience is the return of mixed martial arts to over-the-air free television (CBS), in which heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko (32-1), considered by many to be the world's best MMA fighter, throws down against Brett Rogers (10-0) in Hoffman Estates, Ill.

This is the first fight for Emelianenko since his promotional company, M-1 Global, signed an agreement with Strikeforce, much to the chagrin of UFC president Dana White. Emelianenko is the biggest of the big fish not under UFC control.

Hines checked out Hilton

Tomorrow marks the 21th anniversary of Robert "Bam Bam" Hines' upset of IBF junior middleweight champion Matthew Hilton at the Las Vegas Hilton.

OK, so the North Philadelphia southpaw's title reign was regrettably brief. He was a unanimous-decision loser to Darrin Van Horn in his first defense, on Feb. 5, 1989, a fight for which Hines had to lose 27 pounds to make the 154-pound limit and was unable to spar during training because of a chronically sore right shoulder.

But Hines, 48, who was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame earlier this year, scaled Himalayan heights in dispatching Hilton, one of the more feared body punchers of his or any era.

Hilton floored Hines in both the second and third rounds, but the challenger was not easily dissuaded and outworked the Canadian the rest of the way, landing 305 of 932 punches, according to CompuBox statistics, to only 162 of 424 for Hilton.

"Matthew Hilton didn't show me nothing new," Hines, who finished with a record of 25-3-1 with 17 KOs, crowed after his defining victory. "I get this in sparring all the time. Hey, I'm from Philadelphia."

This Price was right

Congratulations to 11-year-old Philadelphian Dylan Price, who won the 65-pound title in the junior division at the recently concluded National Police Athletic League Championships in San Antonio. Price is trained by Philly's Mitchell Allen Sr., but his corner team at the PAL tournament included Floyd Mayweather Sr., whose son you may have heard of. Also doing Philly proud in San Antonio was 201-plus-pounder Bryant Jennings, who made it to the final in the open division before losing to Lenroy Thompson. *

Send e-mail to fernanb@phillynews.com

Source: philly.com

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Glen Johnson: "I'm a huge Pacquiao fan"

Fighthype.com

"I'm a huge Pacquiao fan. I mean he's my favorite fighter out there outside of myself, so I love Pacquiao. I believe he's a guy that brings a lot of excitement to the sport. When he comes, he don't play around. He brings it. Win or lose, he's a true fighter and for me, that's boxing should be about," stated former light heavyweight champion Glen Johnson... READ MORE

Jones-Hopkins: It might not be too late for a good show

By William Dettloff, The RING

To many, it’s no big news that Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones have finally come to terms for a rematch to their May 1993 middleweight title fight.

If it had come in, say, 2003, before Jones was sent snoring deep into the night by Antonio Tarver and then Glen Johnson, and when Hopkins was still younger than Methuselah, its reception almost certainly would have been universally positive. READ MORE
 

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Hopkins & Jones Jr (Photo by TheBlueCorner.Wordpress.com)