By Rob Morris: There is a mouth-watering clash at light-heavyweight at the Bell Centre, Montreal, Canada on Saturday when Jean Pacsal and Chad Dawson fight for the former’s WBC title.
In a day and age when the best don’t always fight the best, it’s good to see two of the world’s premier 175lber’s signing up to this clash, especially Dawson who has agreed to travel to his opponent’s backyard for this bout.
Pascal (Haitian born but Canada based), a former touted amateur who won the Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2002, has made good progress since turning pro in 2005. He streaked to 21-0 and was NABF super-middleweight champion when he suffered his only defeat so far on points to England’s Carl Froch in a wild and entertaining brawl for the WBC 168lb title in December 2008 in Nottingham, England. This is one of only two times Pascal has fought outside of Canada in his 26 bout (25-1, 16 KO’s) career so home comfort is obviously significant to him. Two fights after the loss to Froch came the rather unexpected opportunity to box for the WBC Light-Heavyweight title against Romanian (although also Canadian based) Adrian Diaconu, resulting in a points decision for Pascal after a gruelling fight. Successful defences against Silvio Branco and Diaconu again followed before now comes the Canadian’s biggest test to date.
Dawson, a converted southpaw from Connecticut in the US, is 29-0 (17 KO’s) with the only blemish on his record a No Contest in 2004 against Aundalen Sloan when Dawson failed a post fight drugs test after he had initially been declared the winner on points. He won minor titles at middleweight and super-middleweight before making the move to light-heavy in 2006. He captured the WBC title the following year with a hard fought decision over Tomasz Adamek. After two routine defences came arguably Dawson’s toughest fight so far when he decisioned Glen Johnson over 12 tough rounds. Dawson gave up the WBC title to win the IBF and IBO titles by outpointing Antonio Tarver in 2008 and then repeating the trick in 2009. Johnson was outpointed again, rather more comfortably this time in November 2009, the last time Dawson fought.
On paper at least the two fighters are evenly matched; they are a similar age (Pascal is 27, Dawson 28), have had a similar number of fights (Pascal has 26, Dawson 29), have fought a similar number of rounds in their careers (Pascal has fought 171, Dawson 182). In one area though Dawson enjoys significant advantage in possessing a 9½ inch longer reach than his opponent.
Both fighters have good hand speed and Pascal likes to come forward and press the action and Dawson can be caught as seen in the first Johnson fight. However Dawson can adapt and be more cautious and utilize his boxing skills to make a fight easier for himself which he did in the Johnson return.
There are plenty of intangibles to consider, not least, how big an impact will the home crowd have on Pascal? Will Dawson’s southpaw stance and reach advantage pose problems that Pascal cannot solve? Will Dawson be drawn into a brawl by Pascal? Whilst not exactly going out on a limb, as Dawson is the favourite with the oddsmakers, I am picking Dawson to win on points reasonably comfortably in an entertaining fight although I expect him to have to come through some tough moments along the way.