Chad Dawson To Watch Pavlik/Hopkins Carefully

Must’ve been nice for Chad Dawson to hear Floyd Mayweather call him the best pound for pound fighter on the planet. But that endorsement from Money was just spare change as compared to the jackpot Dawson scored when he conclusively downed Antonio Tarver on Oct. 11 in Vegas.

The win lets the 26-year-old Dawson, the Connecticut hitter who now holds Tarver’s IBF and IBO 175 pound titles, sit back and chill a bit as he watches to see how some fights in his poundage neighborhood play out.

Dawson’s promoter Gary Shaw told TSS he’ll monitor Saturday’s Kelly Pavlik/Bernard Hopkins tiff, the Nov. 8 Roy Jones/Joe Calzaghe fight, and the Nov. 15 Jermain Taylor/Jeff Lacy scrap. “Chad would fight any of those fighters,” Shaw said. “We can’t run ahead of any of those fights.”

Dawson’s UD12 performance against Tarver showcased his super-quick hands and ability to put together combos that will almost certainly spur a couple of those aforementioned players in and around 175 pounds to avoid him like Karl Rove avoids subpoenas.

I’m that much more impressed with Dawson after that Tarver outing, because it shows us that he takes his craft seriously. He knew he needed to train that much harder after he had his hands full with Glen Johnson in April, and it is clear that he took from the Johnson fight some specifics that he attended to. Now, we’ll see how he handles the next hurdle for a newly minted star: the adulation crush. Will he be back in the gym, keeping himself sharp, keeping his weight down, or will he be indulging in a lengthy honeymoon period, reveling in the backslaps, and dinners on the house from local restaurateurs?

We shall see…

Speaking of Shaw, he’s bounced back from his “interesting” foray into the MMA world very well indeed. Dawson has some bargaining power now, and another Shaw fighter, the 26-year-old Alfredo Angulo, has blown up as an overnight fan favorite. The Mexican-born junior middleweight battered Andrey Tsurkan on Oct. 4, and Shaw says “Perro” is willing to step up, hard, and fast. He’d face John Duddy, or Ronald Hearns, two undefeateds who could well square off by the middle of next year. The winner of the Nov. 1 Andre Dirrell/Victor Oganov—–TSS bets one of John McCain’s houses on Dirrell—could also be in the mix to meet Angulo. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. would be a big catch, but Shaw said he thinks Top Rank wouldn’t go that route. “They wouldn’t go for that slaughter,” he said. Carlos DeLeon, who last fought and won vs. McGirt Jr. in April, could be a possibility, too. Shaw is looking to lock down a February BAD date for “Perro.” That will give Angulo some time to conquer his Rosetta Stone English tapes…

Don’t forget about WBC junior welterweight champ Tim Bradley; he’ll get a crack at the winner of the Kendall Holt/Ricardo Torres tiebreaker on Dec. 13. Holt has the WBO 140 pound honorific, so this would be a consolidation tussle.

Shaw’s super fly guy, IBF champ Vic Darchinyan, isn’t looking past Cristian Mijares (WBC, WBA titlist) on Nov. 1. If all goes well there, Shaw would like to match Vic with Jorge Arce, the Mexican hitter who lost to Mijares in April 2007.

And of course, Shaw is working on the ultimate “no brainer” project, Vazquez/Marquez 4. “Marquez is ready to go,” Shaw said. “But Vazquez has been talking about other fights. I think the real money for him is in this one. I’d like to do it in January or February, probably in LA.” Shaw just had a face to face with Team Vazquez and seemed encouraged about the prospects for number four.