by Geoffrey Ciani – American light heavyweight contender Chad Dawson (30-1, 17 KOs) is slated to challenge the ageless warrior Bernard Hopkins (52-5-2, 32 KOs) on October 15 for the WBC title that Hopkins recently won when he became the oldest boxer in history to win a major world championship. Apparently however, Dawson will be going into the biggest fight of his life without Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward.
Steward was already in camp working with several boxers, including middleweight contender Andy Lee who is preparing for a long anticipated rematch with Bryan Vera. Dawson, however, did not show up for training as scheduled. Instead Dawson has now decided that he wants to stay near home for his training and preparations so that he can be close to his wife and newborn child. It is unclear at this time who will be training Dawson for the showdown with Hopkins and it appears he is currently working alone.
I had the chance to speak with Steward for a comment and he said, “I wish Chad well. I think his skills and style are still very dangerous for Bernard. I wish him good luck. I will be there hopefully in my tuxedo doing the broadcast”.
Steward and Dawson first paired up after Dawson suffered his first professional loss at the hands of Jean Pascal in August of last year. They had one fight together in May when Dawson defeated Adrian Diaconu by unanimous decision on the under card of the Hopkins-Pascal rematch. Early in that fight Dawson exhibited a more aggressive style than we are accustomed to seeing before slipping back into his more traditional tactical approach. With just one fight together, it is difficult to say what type of strategy the team would employ for the upcoming contest against Hopkins.
Now, however, Dawson will seemingly have to prepare a strategy for one of the most intelligent and versatile fighters in the game without the help of an experienced long time trainer. This can prove to be a very difficult challenge which raises a lot of questions about Dawson’s chances in this contest.
“He loves his family and I think that’s great. I differ with him on preparations for this fight, though”, said Steward.
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