Did Pascal win or did Dawson lose?

[Dave Rado]

Pascal won the fight by throwing punches. Who woulda guessed that was the way to win a boxing match? Dawson is full of talent, but after last nights performance I think he gets beat by Dirrell and Ward.

In the football (soccer to you) world cup, Spain lost to Switzerland (a team of nobodies) in their opening match, which was during the group stages, in a round-robin format - but Spain still went on to win the world cup convincingly. Spain is now ranked the #1 team in the world, while Switzerland, despite that win over Spain, is only ranked #17.

Everyone has off-days. In most sports that's taken for granted, but in boxing people expect fighters to be at the top of their game in every single fight, probably because many of them only fight twice a year. But no one can be at their best all the time. Tiger Woods doesn't win every golf tournament, but he's still regarded as one of the top 3 golfers of all time, and easily the best of his era. When he loses a single tournament, no one claims he was exposed, so why the double standards with boxing?

In the old days when top fighters fought once or twice every month, far less significance was placed on a single defeat. LaMotta beat Ray Robinson in his prime, once, but LaMotta went on to lose five bouts against Robinson, and no one thinks LaMotta was really in Ray Robinson's class. Similarly, IMO, Pascal isn't really in Dawson's class, but time will tell.

And the fact is, Dawson had the tools to win last night, but just didn't use them. He was lethargic, and frequently stood back after a flurry when he could and should have pressed his advantage. IOW, like Spain against Switzerland, and like Ray Robinson in the first LaMotta fight, he had a bad night. For that reason, assuming he can learn from his mistakes, he would be the strong favourite to win a rematch. It's obvious that Dawson has the ability (in terms of talent) to improve on last night's performance, whereas it's doubtful whether Pascal can improve significantly.

Plus styles make fights. It was obvious that Dawson, with his orthodox style would have trouble with a style as unorthodox as Pascal's - just as Vernon Forrest had trouble with Mayorga's style. Yet Forrest's overall resume is far better than Mayorga's, and few would rank Mayorga above Forrest in any rankings list, based on their entire careers.

[The Hammer]

Dawson lost it.

The truth is, Dawson has better boxing skills than Pascal and could have won if he did more. He also appeared to have a much longer reach. Chad fought very well in the 11th round, but it was too little too late.

If Chad had been more energetic and aggressive in the earlier rounds, he would have won the fight and probably even stopped Pascal, but he was flat and passive.

But like someone said earlier, everybody has nights like that.