This Chad was just plain “bad”

Chad Dawson got in the face of fellow light heavyweight Jean Pascal more often at the weigh-in than he did for most of their fight Saturday. Maybe Pascal's breath was bad enough to scare Dawson from engaging him closely during the bout.

As an observer of boxing for over 20 years now, I can say that there are three things that I firmly believe go into making a boxer who he or she is (and you could probably apply them to any sport, really). Setting aside for a minute any other intangibles that could come into play, these are the three variables:

1. Skill – Whether this is God-given talent or acquired by training, the actually boxing ability of a fighter in the ring.

2. Intelligence – Otherwise known as wisdom or ring smarts, this covers the mental side of the game, from the ability to adapt to getting your opponent to fight your fight.

3. Heart – This is what most fans call the warrior’s mentality, from the journeyman who keeps fighting after being knocked down five times to the champion who summons the will to grind out the last two rounds of a title defense.

Every fighter has varying degrees of each one of these attributes, but here’s one thing that’s for sure: If you’re severely lacking in any one of these areas, but are great in the other two, it will eventually catch up to you.

Want an example or two?

Ricky Hatton has tons of fighting heart and dictated his all-attacking style to just about every opponent he ever faced. However, when it came down to matching skill on skill with the Pacquiao’s & Mayweather’s of the world, he just couldn’t hang and eventually lost. Does that mean he was without skill? Of course not. But as a fighter attempts to ascend the highest rungs of boxing’s ladder, not having one of the attributes at the same high level of the other two will make life difficult, and that’s what happened to Hatton. Too bad there can’t be more than one Ricky Hatton, eh?

A different example would be welterweight Kendall Holt. While “Rated R” has skill beyond compare and a willingness to bring the fight each and every time, he is also very capable of melting down mentally at a moment’s notice. Anyone remember his awesome first couple of rounds against Timothy Bradley last year? Holt could have been in control of the fight and possibly won, but he inexplicably decided to quit throwing punches and using his jab, so Bradley took over. How about the rematch against Ricardo Torres, where Holt wasn’t ready for Torres to start brawling at the opening bell (which is all Torres ever does), and got knocked down twice in the first round before eventually coming back to win by knockout in the same round? Great heart, but Holt could save himself a lot of pain and suffering by keeping his wits about him sometimes.

Which now brings us to the third example, that of light heavyweight Chad Dawson. We know Dawson’s skill is among the very best in boxing, period. We know he is cagey enough to keep world-class fighters like Glen Johnson and Thomasz Adamek off their games and frustrated. But never has Dawson’s heart been truly tested. Never has he had to prove that he wanted it more than the other guy. Never has he had to overcome that adversity that makes so many fighters great.

Against Jean Pascal last Saturday, Dawson showed that he might not have what it takes to bring it at the highest level. And what a disappointment that is.

When it became apparent during the first few rounds that Pascal was going to use his familiar Montreal crowd to bring the fight and wrest the title of best 175-pounder from Dawson, “Bad” Chad was just plain bad. Make no mistake, Dawson is the better fighter by miles, both in terms of skill and ring smarts. But it was apparent early on that Pascal just wanted it way more than Dawson did, to the extent that Pascal was going to keep throwing punches until something good happened. Here’s a guy that suffered three shoulder separations (ouch!) in his second fight with Adrian Diaconu, and still found a way to win.

Dawson, when faced with this situation and opponent, apparently forgot to bring the gasoline with him. Pascal totally dictated the fight, but it was obvious that during the infrequent times that Dawson decided he wasn’t going to fight safety-first, he could really do some damage. Still, there was no energy, no passion to win and really no significant punch output coming at all from Dawson. It wasn’t until the later rounds when he decided to get on his horse that he had Pascal hurt in the ninth and nearly out in the eleventh before an accidental headbutt cut Dawson and caused the fight to go to the cards. At that point, it was too late. Dawson was toast.

The worst part was that it was inexcusable for a guy that was fighting in the challenger’s hometown because he can’t sell tickets in the United States not to lay everything on the line. What did he figure would happen? With the vocal Montreal crowd ooohing and aaahing with every Pascal punch, they would give the decision to the guy from Connecticut? Dawson, unlike crowd-pleasing fighters like Arturo Gatti, has to find a way to keep winning so that HBO and the boxing public will remain interested. With this lousy performance and the lack of any guts, who’s going to flock to see Dawson now? Pascal’s the man at 175, not him. And, although Dawson’s calling for a rematch, a bazillion-dollar fight with Lucien Bute’ is next for Pascal, because the Bute’ matchup is much more interesting, from Canada to Bhutan.

At this moment, Dawson is at a crossroads. He needs to decide whether he has the passion to take some risk and get his crown back, or if he’s going to join the Derrick Gainer’s of the world as just a skilled fighter who plays it too safe to ever be a real factor again.

It may be time for some real heart surgery.