By Patrick Kehoe

Cable broadcasters HBO certainly want the answer to the question of just what kind of upside light-heavyweight title holder Chad Dawson can generate. No one expects his career to spontaneously combust, for him to become an overnight media darling.

Fighters like Dawson are mainly comprised about pragmatism and hard work and gaining big wins over time and HBO think he could fit nicely into the gap left by the retired Joe Calzaghe, aging Bernard Hopkins and made to order Carl Froch. With their galaxy of superstars gone collectively nova, Dawson also represents the kind of repackaging/repositioning of talent that HBO are going to have to mentor over the next few years.

With Oscar De La Hoya, Roy Jones and Ricky Hatton exiting stage left, Arturo Gatti, Felix Trinidad and Fernando Vargas the ghosts of glories past, Bernard Hopkins, Sugar Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather eternally dependant on the fan wattage of their named opposition, HBO Boxing has become so Manny Pacquiao centric these days they must feel compelled toward full product development mode. The talented Jermain Taylor proved once and for all he was another dead man walking, a talent imploded, being iced in the 12th round of a colossal title losing collapse, against Britain’s latest overachiever Carl Froch, the Little Rock native looked sure to win! Even Felix Trinidad’s successor to the hearts and minds and demographic fanaticism of Puerto Ricans everywhere, Miguel Cotto, struggles with coming to terms with boxing being a business that only gets more dangerous, the more famous and successful you become.   

Can the big southpaw titleholder Dawson be made to seem an authentic rising star or at least take on the role of minor celebrity glistening with effusive talents – aka an undiscovered great – putting together notable wins long enough for HBO to get something like mass marketing dynamics galvanized to his image?

Yes, that’s how much enhancement the ring persona of Dawson needs. Because we are talking about Dawson being more than a great boxer here, we are trying to imagine him as a next generation some-body of financial generating stature, a boxing standalone marketing entity. HBO have to believe that eventuality might be possible.

If only talent and ring accomplishments were the lone criteria for stardom. Sadly, they are not.

Boxing being sporting entertainment necessarily means that a fighter needs a persona compatible with amplification, deification or manipulation plus a signature talent to make broadcasting their fights incrementally profitable.

And Chad Dawson certainly has the ego of a champion, the drive to develop his abilities, the obsession to stand alone within his generation, though he’s not exactly a master of prefight high rhetoric or trash talking self promotion, like, say, Antonio Tarver or Roy Jones Jr. He clearly has no defined demographic fan base; he and his talents stand alone, a blank slate waiting for a HBO on air Jim Lampley narrative voice over to bring him into virtualized reality.

At 26, Chad Dawson will look across the ring to size up the 40 year-old Antonio Tarver, when the undefeated IBF light-heavyweight champion and former undisputed light-heavyweight champion from Florida renew their championship hostilities, at the 4,000 seat capacity Hard Rock Hotel and Casino’s The Joint, on Saturday night. We note in passing, this HBO telecasted championship rematch is a contractually mandated rematch, stemming from Dawson’s 12 round decision win over then title holder Tarver, on October 11, 2008; a contest delayed from its original March 14 launch date due to Dawson’s right hand ligament injury in February. All the logistics of age and place won’t change the advantages enjoyed by the champion in youth, size aligned to superior athleticism translated into foot and hand speed and the competitive confidence head to head having won their original encounter. Tarver earnestly points to his personal history as the best rematch fighter of his generation, as if adaptability were his second nature.

And yet, almost no one in boxing believes Antonio Tarver still possess those idiosyncratic qualities he once utilized infrequently, though at times astonishingly. For that matter few in boxing see the need for this fight at all; but we understand this is mainly about HBO reconstituting their stable.    

One must also acknowledge the age old maxim that very often the first round of the rematch is merely the next round of a continuous flow of combative interplay. Seeing round one, essentially, as round 13 bodes well for the champion, given that Dawson dropped Tarver in the final frame of their October 2008 match. Need we remind ourselves that before the first fight the loquacious Tarver, 27-5 (19), assured us fighting Dawson was akin to the master disciplining his pupil. Tarver tried to infantilize Dawson, only to be turned into an old man, in a young man’s sport. No matter what Tarver saw reviewing the video of Dawson, he demanded an objective reading of their respective CV’s. “You tell me who’s fought the real fighters, the legends?” For Tarver he was the established Superstar boxer having to justify his chances against whom, Chad Dawson, the Lame Duck pseudo-champion? Who, Tarver wanted to know, had Chad Dawson ever convincingly beaten, certainly not Glen Johnson, whom Tarver said deserved the decision against “Bad” Chad.

Dawson cryptically reminded Tarver that you do not fight with your mouth then proceeded to punch Tarver nearly silly over twelve rounds.

To his credit, Tarver has toned down the prefight bravado; remarkably, he’s just training knowing his career depends on it. At 40, losing can be fatal. Most of us wonder if Tarver can still pull the trigger on that monster left cross, the one that obliterated the legend of Roy Jones Jr. Sometimes boxing comes down to an absolutely elemental issue. One must assert this as the fundamental question because technical avenues will not get a win for Tarver over a fighter who’s as big as he is, younger, demonstratively quicker fisted than he, who’s ring movement and combination hitting are at another level beyond the ultra-veteran Floridian. Add to that sobering list Dawson has already proven his ability to carry out an effective game plan over the distance – culminating in near domination at the close of their first fight – and you certainly have a daunting project laying in wait for Team Tarver.

And yet hope springs eternal for Tarver for the most basic of reasons. Dawson has been decked by clean up punches from far less men. Glen Johnson found the will and drive to punish Dawson and further define Dawson as a fighter with a low guard, who can be hit with authority to the body. Of course, Johnson has a far superior interior guard to Tarver and unquestionably the superior chin and over all resilience to Dawson’s big combination punches. That too was proven in the first Dawson-Tarver fight.

Not that Tarver has the work rate to drive home the kind of punching volume to produce anything close to a Glen Johnson type effort at a moving target with the skills set of a Chad Dawson. So, yes, this fight does come down to contractual obligations; Dawson being contractually obligated from the agreement of their first fight to battle it out with Tarver in a rematch. And yet this forced encounter of un-equals, talents heading in opposite directions, has put Chad Dawson onto HBO programming. In a boxing sense, Dawson has arrived. It is THIS fight that begins the meaningful career of Chad Dawson.

Tarver would never admit he’s almost resigned, functionally checkmated into a one punch hit and hope game plan. Though Carl Froch did remind us that when it comes to outrageous punches coming out of the heavens to strike down mere mortals – even those with title belts and legitimate talent – who knows what wrath awaits men caught up in the web of hubristic disdain. Of course this is now, present time, and Tarver finds himself older and wiser and less capable, though his conviction remains, his closeted arrogance justified in his all seeing mind’s eye. Perhaps, Tarver is just blind to the inevitability that awaits him, yet again. Though he must be; fighters must believe beyond what’s reasonable and expected and probable, if they are not – or no longer – the favoured, the chosen or the intended.

Tarver knows he supposed to be the victim in this fight so that HBO can canvas the possibility of a Hopkins-Dawson fall showdown. Despite the fact there isn’t enough money in the fragile US banking system to tempt Hopkins to fight a primed power like Dawson; but, one never knows in boxing. HBO used to pay prime dollars to present Roy Jones fighting sequined sparring sessions on their championship airwaves. Might there be a reserve bank left to break to pay what Hopkins would demand... Of course there isn’t.  Hopkins at a pro-rated, recession adjusted rate, now that takes some imagining!

Yes, we are all getting ahead of ourselves, everyone except Chad Dawson. He’s apparently taking this fight as round one of an encounter never before contested. He’s expecting a hard fight. Sure, we have all heard that one before. And yet, Dawson seems to believe it, seems to have trained to put out his maxim effort, if necessary.

Then, of course, there remains the simple theory of intended inevitability. If you work long enough and keep to your task, you can make what you desire materialize, eventually. If you believe that, then one classic Antonio Tarver left hand to the jaw could rescue what appears destined to be a night of abject failure. So why not indulge in a hypothetical: Can Dawson stand in and around Tarver for 24 rounds and not kiss the canvas? Tarver can imagine his short term future with his power punching returned, flowing, and hitting the target because rematches are HIS fights.

One good crack with the Roy Jones melting left. Tarver can actually see it; feel it sledge-hammering home, Dawson crumpling into an involuntary heap. Then again, the isolation of training camp makes for idle dreams.

For Dawson – the only prime force in this light-heavyweight championship fight, the guy with the gas and unfettered gumption - Tarver being “The Magic Man” landing his primo best is just old news; ain’t going to happen!

For Chad Dawson, his HBO future is now.

Patrick Kehoe may be reached at pkehoe@telus.net