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Chad Dawson is the Latest Ex-Champ to Mount a Comeback

This past Saturday there were big shows in Houston and in Providence, Rhode Island, that went head-to-head on Showtime and DAZN respectively. Lost in the shadows was a little card at the Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut that included Chad Dawson, a man once fairly touted as the best fighter to come out of the Nutmeg State since Marlon Starling, if not Willie Pep.
Dawson, who turns 37 next week, turned pro in 2001 after a stellar amateur career. Fighting out of New Haven, he won his first title in February of 2007, claiming the vacant WBC light heavyweight title with a unanimous decision over previously undefeated Tomasz Adamek. He made six successful defenses, adding the IBF diadem in the process, before losing the belt to Jean Pascal, and then came back to recapture the WBC belt, outpointing Bernard Hopkins in their second of two meetings. (Their first encounter ended controversially when Dawson lifted and threw Hopkins through the ropes late in the second round, forcing B-Hop to quit with a dislocated shoulder. Originally deemed a win by TKO for Dawson, it was subsequently changed to a technical draw and then changed again to a no-contest.)
Decades from now, Dawson’s victory Hopkins (a majority decision that should have been unanimous) will likely be considered his signature win as it came against an all-time great. At the time, however, it did little to boost Dawson’s stock as he was fighting a 47-year-old man and was favored to win. Early in the fight, Chad’s manager, Gary Shaw, was seen exhorting him to be more aggressive, but that wasn’t his style.
A slick southpaw in the mold of current middleweight title-holder Demetrius Andrade, Dawson was never a big draw. After defeating Hopkins, he had a choice to make: Defend his WBC (and lineal) belt in a rematch with Jean Pascal or drop down to 168 for a more lucrative engagement with Andre Ward. Dawson chose the latter and looking back one could say that he was penny wise and pound foolish.
Dawson and Ward met on Sept. 8, 2012, on Ward’s turf in Oakland. On the day preceding the weigh-in, Dawson was seven pounds overweight. He was able to boil off the excess poundage, but entered the fight in a severely weakened condition. In fact, his trainer at the time, John Scully, encouraged him to pull out of the fight when it became obvious to him that it was going to be a real chore for Chad to make the weight.
Had Dawson been in tip-top shape, it’s unlikely he could have defeated a man as talented as Andre Ward. However, he would have undoubtedly made a better showing. He was on the canvas three times before the referee mercifully halted the one-sided affray in the 10th stanza.
Dawson was never the same after his beatdown by Ward. Nine months later, he lost his 175-pound strap in 76 seconds, shorn of it by Adonis Stevenson who leveled him with a terrific left hook. For this contest, Chad reunited with his former trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. Dawson was forever changing trainers. The aforementioned Scully, a local man, a former light heavyweight contender and world title challenger, was there for most of his early fights and for his two matches with Hopkins, but Dawson was also handled by Dan Birmingham, Floyd Mayweather Sr, and Emanuel Steward, among others.
Sixteen months after his loss to Stevenson, Dawson suffered more misfortune when he blew out his shoulder early into his 10-round bout with Tommy Karpency in what was supposed to be a tune-up for a match with Eleider Alvarez. Dawson lost a split decision and was sidelined for 14 months.
Dawson’s last fight against a top-tier opponent came on March 4, 2017, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn where he locked horns with Andrzej Fonfara on a show headlined by the welterweight title fight between Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia. Dawson was comfortably ahead after seven frames but faded and was stopped in the 10th. He retired following that setback but like most former champions the itch to return became too strong and so he was back in the ring on Saturday at a familiar stomping ground, Foxwoods, where he met Quinton Rankin, a free swinger from North Carolina with a 15-5-2 ledger (a soft 15-5-2 as Rankin had defeated only four fighters with a winning record).
It was an 8-round contest and Dawson, although dropped by an uppercut in the fifth round (it was a flash knockdown; he wasn’t hurt) prevailed by a unanimous decision, upping his record to 35-5-2. Chad won six of the eight rounds on two of the cards and all eight rounds on the third.
What’s next for Chad Dawson? Eastern Europeans currently dominate the light heavyweight division. The current champions are Dmitry Bivol (WBA), Oleksandr Gvozdyk (WBC), Artur Beterbiev (IBF), and Sergey Kovalev (WBO). Dawson believes in his heart that he could beat any of them.
We would like to dispel him of this notion, but understand that it’s hard for a fighter of high repute now on the wrong side of the hill to come to grips with the fact that he can never be as good as he once was.
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Mercito Gesta Victorious Over Jojo Diaz at the Long Beach Pyramid

LONG BEACH, CA.-Those in the know knew Mercito Gesta and Jojo Diaz would be a fight to watch and they delivered.
Gesta emerged the winner in a super lightweight clash between southpaws that saw the judges favor his busier style over Diaz’s body attack and bigger shots and win by split decision on Saturday.
Despite losing the main event because the star was overweight, Gesta (34-3-3, 17 KOs) used an outside method of tactic to edge past former world champion Diaz (32-4-1, 15 KOs) in front of more than 5,000 fans at the Pyramid.
The speedy Gesta opened up the fight with combination punching up and down against the peek-a-boo style of Diaz. For the first two rounds the San Diego fighter overwhelmed Diaz though none of the blows were impactful.
In the third round Diaz finally began unloading his own combinations and displaying the fast hands that helped him win world titles in two divisions. Gesta seemed stunned by the blows, but his chin held up. The counter right hook was Diaz’s best weapon and snapped Gesta’s head back several times.
Gesta regained control in the fifth round after absorbing big blows from Diaz. He seemed to get angry that he was hurt and opened up with even more blows to send Diaz backpedaling.
Diaz targeted his attack to Gesta’s body and that seemed to slow down Gesta. But only for a round.
From the seventh until the 10th each fighter tried to impose their style with Gesta opening up with fast flurries and Diaz using right hooks to connect with solid shots. They continued their method of attack until the final bell. All that mattered was what the judges preferred.
After 10 rounds one judge saw Diaz the winner 97-93 but two others saw Gesta the winner 99-91, 98-92. It was a close and interesting fight.
“I was expecting nothing. I was the victor in this fight and we gave a good fight,” said Gesta. “It’s not an easy fight and Jojo gave his best.”
Diaz was surprised by the outcome but accepted the verdict.
Everything was going good. I thought I was landing good body shots,” said Diaz. “I was pretty comfortable.”
Other Bouts
Mexico’s Oscar Duarte (25-1-1, 20 KOs) knocked out Chicago’s Alex Martin (18-5, 6 KOs) with a counter right hand after dropping him earlier in the fourth round. The super lightweight fight was stopped at 1:14 of the round.
A battle between undefeated super welterweights saw Florida’s Eric Tudor (8-0, 6 KOs) emerge the winner by unanimous decision after eight rounds versus Oakland’s Damoni Cato-Cain.
The taller Tudor showed polished skill and was not bothered by a large cut on his forehead caused by an accidental clash of heads. He used his jab and lead rights to defuse the attacks of the quick-fisted southpaw Cato-Cain. The judges scored the fight 80-72 and 78-74 twice for Tudor.
San Diego’s Jorge Chavez (5-0, 4 KOs) needed less than one round to figure out Nicaragua’s Bryan Perez (12-17-1, 11 KOs) and send him into dreamland with a three-punch combination. No need to count as referee Ray Corona waved the fight over. Perez shot a vicious right followed by another right and then a see-you-later left hook at 3.00 of the first round of the super featherweight match.
Photo credit: Al Applerose
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Jojo Diaz’s Slump Continues; Mercito Gesta Prevails on a Split Decision

At age 30, Jojo Diaz’s career is on the skids. The 2012 U.S. Olympian, a former world title holder at 126 and 130 pounds and an interim title holder at 135, Diaz suffered his third straight loss tonight, upset by Mercito Gesta who won a split decision at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, CA.. The scoring was strange with Gesta winning nine of the 10 rounds on one of the cards and only three rounds on another. The tie-breaker, as it were, was a 98-92 tally for Gesta and even that didn’t capture the flavor of what was a closely-contested fight.
Originally listed as a 12-rounder, the match was reduced to 10 and that, it turned out, did Diaz no favors. However, it’s hard to feel sorry for the former Olympian as he came in overweight once again, having lost his 130-pound title on the scales in February of 2021.
Diaz also has issues outside the ropes. Best elucidated by prominent boxing writer Jake Donovan, they include a cluster of legal problems stemming from an arrest for drunk driving on Feb. 27 in the LA suburb of Claremont.
With the defeat, Diaz’s ledger declined to 32-4-1. His prior losses came at the hands of Gary Russell Jr, Devin Haney, and William Zepeda, boxers who are collectively 83-2. Mercito Gesta, a 35-year-old San Diego-based Filipino, improved to 34-3-3.
Co-Feature
Chihuahua, Mexico super lightweight Oscar Duarte has now won nine straight inside the distance after stopping 33-year-old Chicago southpaw Alex Martin in the eighth frame. Duarte, the busier fighter, had Martin on the deck twice in round eight before the fight was waived off.
Duarte improved to 25-1-1 (20). Martin, who reportedly won six national titles as an amateur and was once looked upon as a promising prospect, declined to 18-5.
Other Bouts of Note
New Golden Boy signee Eric Tudor, a 21-year-old super welterweight from Fort Lauderdale, overcame a bad laceration over his right eye, the result of an accidental clash of heads in round four, to stay unbeaten, advancing to 8-0 (6) with a hard-fought unanimous 8-round decision over Oakland’s Damoni Cato-Cain. The judges had it 80-72 and 78-74 twice. It was the first pro loss for Cato-Cain (7-1-1) who had his first five fights in Tijuana.
In the DAZN opener, lanky Hawaian lightweight Dalis Kaleiopu went the distance for the first time in his young career, improving to 4-0 (3) with a unanimous decision over 36-year-old Colombian trial horse Jonathan Perez (40-35). The scores were 60-52 across the board. There were no knockdowns, but Perez, who gave up almost six inches in height, had a point deducted for a rabbit punch and another point for deducted for holding.
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‘Big Baby’ Wins the Battle of Behemoths; TKOs ‘Big Daddy’ in 6

Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne weighed in at a career-high 277 pounds for today’s battle in Dubai with Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller, but he was the lighter man by 56 pounds. It figured that one or both would gas out if the bout lasted more than a few stanzas.
It was a war of attrition with both men looking exhausted at times, and when the end came it was Miller, at age 34 the younger man by nine years, who had his hand raised.
Browne was the busier man, but Miller, whose physique invites comparison with a rhinoceros, hardly blinked as he was tattooed with an assortment of punches. He hurt ‘Bid Daddy’ in round four, but the Aussie held his own in the next frame, perhaps even forging ahead on the cards, but only postponing the inevitable.
In round six, a succession of right hands knocked Browne on the seat of his pants. He beat the count, but another barrage from Miller impelled the referee to intervene. The official time was 2:33. It was the 21st straight win for Miller (26-0-1, 22 KOs). Browne declined to 31-4 and, for his own sake, ought not fight again. All four of his losses have come inside the distance, some brutally.
The consensus of those that caught the livestream was that Floyd Mayweather Jr’s commentary was an annoying distraction that marred what was otherwise an entertaining show.
As for what’s next for “Big Baby” Miller, that’s hard to decipher as he has burned his bridges with the sport’s most powerful promoters. One possibility is Mahmoud Charr who, like Miller, has a big gap in his boxing timeline. Now 38 years old, Charr – who has a tenuous claim on a WBA world title (don’t we all?) — has reportedly taken up residence in Dubai.
Other Bouts of Note
In a 10-round cruiserweight affair, Suslan Asbarov, a 30-year-old Russian, advanced to 4-0 (1) with a hard-fought majority decision over Brandon Glanton. The judges had it 98-92, 97-93, and a more reasonable 95-95.
Asbarov was 12-9 in documented amateur fights and 1-0 in a sanctioned bare-knuckle fight, all in Moscow, entering this match. He bears watching, however, as Glanton (18-2) would be a tough out for almost anyone in his weight class. In his previous fight, at Plant City, Florida, Glanton lost a controversial decision to David Light, an undefeated Australian who challenges WBO world title-holder Lawrence Okolie at Manchester, England next week.
A 10-round super featherweight match between former world title challengers Jono Carroll and Miguel Marriaga preceded the semi-windup. Carroll, a 30-year-old Dublin southpaw, overcame a cut over his left eye suffered in the second round to win a wide unanimous decision in a fairly entertaining fight.
It was the sixth straight win for Carroll (24-2-1, 7 KOs) who elevated his game after serving as a sparring partner for Devin Haney. Marriaga, a 36-year-old Colombian, lost for the fourth time in his last five outings, declining to 30-7.
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