Dawson’s loss to Karpency in showcase fight puts his career in a bad position

By Bill Phanco - 10/06/2014 - Comments

Last Saturday night former IBF/WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (32-4, 18 KOs) was surprisingly beaten by former world title challenger Tommy Karpency by a 10 round split decision in what was supposed to be a showcase fight for the 32-year-old Dawson at the Foxwoods Resort, in Mashantucket, Connecticut, USA.

Dawson was in shock after the fight, as he felt that he should have been given the decision despite the fact that he clearly injured his left arm in the 7th round. Dawson claimed the injury occurred in the 3rd round. However, he was still using his left arm up until the 7th.

The loss for Dawson has to be seen as a major setback for his career, because he needed the victory in order to keep moving forward towards an eventual world title shot. Even if Dawson had won the fight, he still was looking a number of tough fights that he would have needed to win for him to get another title shot. But with the defeat to Karpency, it’s putting Dawson in an almost impossible hole for him to climb out of.

First off, we don’t know what the extent is for his shoulder injury. That’s something that could either be a thing that he recovers quickly from or an injury that will take a significant amount of time for him to recover. Dawson isn’t exactly the youngest fighter at 32, so he doesn’t have a lot of time to be sitting out of the ring recovering from injuries.

“I hurt my shoulder in the 3rd round,” Dawson said after the fight. “I fought him with one hand. I landed more jabs than he did punches. That’s bull [expletive]. That’s [expletive] bull [expletive]. I can’t talk right now. They must want to throw me out of the game. They must want me out of here. I don’t know. I fought with one arm. Come on, man. That’s crazy. I fought him with one arm from the third round.”

Dawson lost the fight by the scores of 96-94, 96-94 for Karpency, and 96-94 for Dawson. But besides the injury, what is of major concern for Dawson is that he was hurt at least three separate times by Karpency, a fighter who isn’t known for being a big puncher.

If Dawson is having problems handling the power of a non-puncher like Karpency then what’s going to happen when he gets in the ring with the likes of Artur Beterbiev, Sergey Kovalev, and Adonis Stevenson? Dawson already was knocked out in one round by Stevenson last year in June, and with the way Dawson looked last Saturday night, I have a feeling Stevenson would do the same thing if they were to fight again.