The reason why Dawson has to hit the road is simple- this is the only place where this fight would really draw. Montreal, specifically the Bell Centre, has become the epicenter for boxing in Canada and their support has turned Lucian Bute into one of the sports true ticket sellers in North America. And fights like Tim Bradley versus Kendall Holt, two African-American junior welterweights with no ties to the country, did better at the gate than it would have in any other venue in the States.
There’s also this reason: as of now, Dawson doesn’t draw well anywhere, period. Even in his home state of Connecticut, where a disappointing crowd of less than 5,000 showed up last November for his rematch against Glen Johnson at the XL Center in Hartford.
"I did [expect a bigger crowd] but things just didn’t work out," explained Dawson. "I’m thinking if we would’ve done a little better promoting for the fight, it would’ve been a better turnout. But, I mean, I got to put on a show for whoever showed up. It was a big fight; I got the victory; I’m still undefeated."
But what exactly did Dawson mean by “better”?
"A lot of things, I don’t want to get into any details but people didn’t know about the fight till about two or three weeks before the fight," he said. "So, I mean, people didn’t have enough time to get tickets, with the recession and everything going on, a lot of people losing jobs and things like that. People couldn’t really afford to come to the fight. But if I had a chance to do it all over again, I would definitely have promoted it a lot differently."
His promoter, Gary Shaw, admits that the turnout was a letdown."I thought that we bring Chad Dawson back home and that the hometown fans would appreciate and come out in full force for Chad but that just didn’t happen." When he is made aware of his fighter’s comments regarding how that promotion was staged, Shaw was taken aback. "Well, he’s never said it to me. I don’t know. I spent a lot of money on marketing. Mike Criscio, his former manager, I know did a lot and sold a lot of tickets himself. So I don’t know why Chad is saying that. Normally if you bring a fighter back home, it almost sells itself."
In talking to some individuals who worked that promotion, they tell Maxboxing that there was a sizable advertising and marketing budget for that event. Also, Shaw went as far as hiring marketer (and boxing veteran) Lester Bedford to work the event. But it didn’t help that Dawson wasn’t nearly as accessible as he has been for this fight (with the help of his personal assistant, Anita Battle, who was prompt and professional in setting up this particular interview, among many others) and, for a myriad of reasons, wasn’t willing to come into Hartford till the very last week before the fight, making it almost impossible to schedule a full roster of appearances around the event.
As for the fight, well, Dawson, who’s not the most gregarious or colorful of personalities to begin with, didn’t help himself by taking the very least path of resistance in his return bout with Johnson. You could hear the boo-birds at the XL Center by the middle-to-late rounds of their bout. Despite this, Dawson believes that one day he can become a local attraction.
"Yes, I do," he says with confidence. "I believe that, like I said, if we would’ve promoted the fight better than we did, I think we would’ve had a better turnout. But things didn’t work out. But I definitely think that I can draw a bigger crowd."
As of now, Dawson is the typical “HBO boxer,” a talented fighter who can’t sell out his living room, who fights about once or twice a year, and yet the network still sees fit to write him seven-figure checks.
So how do you go about fixing this for Dawson? Well, for one, it would help if he fought more often. As of now, it looks like he will have all of one fight in 2010. Guys like Dawson need to be seen more, not less, by the general public.
"First of all, the Pascal fight was originally scheduled for June but he had a shoulder injury. So that postponed the fight," Dawson points out. "But definitely, I would like to be in the ring more often than I am. Hopefully, I can get another fight in before the end of this year. I’m looking forward to that. Hopefully, I’ll get this victory and have something on the table in November or December."
Shaw says, "I’m still talking to HBO and if he’s only going to fight one time [this year] then they’ve said they’d make it up to me in 2011."
It would help if Dawson can impressively defeat Pascal, who he describes as a "tough, rugged, young guy." But one that he feels he will outclass.
"I see that he has pretty decent hand speed, a lot smaller height-wise. As far as skill level, competition, I faced better competition than Jean Pascal. I know that I’m his biggest fight on his resume. I looked at his résumé, who he’s fought; he hasn’t really fought anybody. He fought Carl Froch and he lost that fight. But I’m not worried about anything. I know once I get into the ring, I’ll do what I have to do. I’ll come out with the victory. The only thing we’re really worried about is the officiating and the judging. If they can keep it cool and calm and let us just go in there and handle our business, everything will turn out fine."
Beating Pascal and picking up the WBC strap is a nice résumé builder for Dawson but what he needs are defining fights. He admits, "I’m still looking for that defining fight. I think the Bernard Hopkins fight, I don’t think that’ll be career-defining for me. I think it’s all about the young guys stepping up; you got the “Super Six” tournament and, eventually, I’m pretty sure those guys are coming up to light heavyweight with Andre Ward. You got Andre Dirrell, Froch; all those guys are young guys. So they’re all possibly, probably will be coming up to light heavyweight soon. So I guess it’s just hoping that people recognize and see my skills.
"People say I’m a boring fighter but I don’t look at it that way. I’m just a pure boxer. I’m just looking forward to going out on the 14th and you’re going to see a totally different Chad Dawson. I don’t think Jean Pascal is gonna want to sit there and trade punches with me. But I’m going to look forward to chasing him around the ring."
Shaw has another idea, the man who isn’t in the “Super Six”- Bute.
"I believe when we beat Jean Pascal, if I can make the Bute fight and we beat Bute, I believe- believe it or not- that Montreal, Canada may become the new home for Chad Dawson."
So in the irony of ironies, Dawson’s eventual home might be on the road. But either way, for the immediate future, you get the sense that Dawson better be willing to pack his bags and update his passport.
"I leave all that up to Gary Shaw, my promoter," said Dawson. "Like I said, I’ll go anywhere to fight the best; it doesn’t matter. I have total confidence in my skills and my talent. I’ll go anywhere to fight the best."
The reality is, he may really have no choice.
ALL OF KING’S MEN
There was a very entertaining doubleheader provided by HBO this past weekend on their latest installment of “Boxing After Dark” from St. Louis. Some thoughts on what I witnessed from my couch...
- Both HBO fights (Tavoris Cloud-Glen Johnson and Devon Alexander-Andriy Kotelnik) ended up having scores of 116-112 across the board on all six scorecards, which is unprecedented, I think. And not surprisingly, both fights- which I thought were very competitive- were in favor of King’s men- Cloud and Alexander.
It suggests to me that A) these cards were filled out beforehand or B) that neither Johnson nor Kotelnik really had a legitimate shot at winning these bouts.
- Johnson is among my favorite people in boxing but I think he got edged out at the end. For whatever reason, his body looked soft, like a guy who had some problems making weight and had to really (over) hydrate his body (I’m guessing that being 41 years of age doesn’t really help matters either). And truth be told, his legs didn’t look very stout in there and much of the vigor came of his punches by the late rounds. Yet, there he was with nothing but his heart and (excuse the term but here, I think it’s appropriate) his balls, taking his younger foe to the brink.
I’ll say this, the version of Johnson that showed up to his first encounter with Dawson back in 2008 stops Cloud, in my not-really-all-that-humble opinion.
- As for Cloud, he’s a fan-friendly fighter but I think I’m pretty much stating the obvious when I make the point that performing once a year isn’t exactly the best way to hone your skill set. But coming off his first defense of his IBF title, he should be better having gone through this experience. Cloud certainly learned how to respect his elders, didn’t he?
- Now, onto the main event; I thought Kotelnik may have edged this fight out based on the cleaner, more effective punches. But did anyone really think that he was going into “The Loo” and taking that title from Alexander? But in the second half of that fight, he was the guy who closed hard and shook “The Great” more than once.
Alexander showed that just because you might be slick and possess speed and quickness, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are elusive. Throughout the night, he left his chin up in the air and exhibited almost no head movement after punching, much to the frustration of his trainer/manager, Kevin Cunningham. But he got through it somehow. Now, the question is, will he become better from this or has a certain blueprint been laid on how to attack Alexander.
I wonder what Tim Bradley thought of all this.
- Was I seeing things or did HBO include Ricky Hatton in their 140-pound graphic? In that case, why not put in Aaron Pryor?
- Just wondering, in light of what took place this weekend, does Amir Khan’s stock go up, based on how he fared with Kotelnik or down, based on how ordinary Breidis Prescott looked (again)?
- And finally, with King saddled up to one Floyd Mayweather and his fighters being the recipient of what some fans believe were outright robberies and him just cackling all the way through it, doesn’t it just remind you of old times?
Only in St. Louis!
REMATCH
A couple of sources tell me that it’s more and more likely that we’ll see the rematch between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez on October the 2nd in Atlantic City, New Jersey. There was a chance that Williams would face Sergiy Dzinziruk and Martinez would take on Alfredo Angulo in separate fights, with the winners eventually facing each other.
But that plan hit a snag as Angulo, who was offered $750,000 for that assignment, demanded a million bucks, which is mind-boggling, considering that he made “just” $350,000 for facing the overmatched Joachim Alcine in front of less than 2,000 patrons a few weeks ago. But this is the era we live in, where HBO keeps doling out exorbitant license fees that are not commensurate with the real values of boxers (which, in the olden days, was determined by how many asses you put in seats). Eventually, fighters like Angulo and Andre Berto start to believe they are worth what they are getting paid despite what their gate receipts total. And the upshot is this- eventually, you overpay them enough times, they will then negotiate themselves out of the real fights.
Will sanity ever return to this process?
Angulo might have just thrown away his opportunity to become the only fighter in 2010 to have appeared on HBO three times.
FINAL FLURRIES
With a crowd of over 9,000 that showed up in support of Alexander at the Scottrade Center, I think it’s clear that he is the heir apparent to Cory Spinks in that city and now a legitimate hometown draw...Speaking of Spinks, you can now throw dirt on that career after getting blitzed by Cornelius “K9” Bundrage and losing his IBF 154-pound title. Can you believe “K9” is a belt-holder?...Not saying that my old friend Harold Lederman was bending over backward for St. Louis on his HBO scorecard but his new moniker should be “Nelly”...I’m not surprised in the least by the boxing lesson given by Chris Martin to Chris Avalos on “ShoBox.” Avalos will have problems with slicksters his whole career...As for Lateef Kayode, he looked like a raw fighter with still a lot of rough edges to smooth out. Because, well, he’s a raw fighter with still a lot of rough edges to smooth out...By the way, it seemed like dozens of people really enjoyed that “ShoBox”- which is having a very good 2010 (kudos to Gordon Hall), in that boxing hotbed of Hinckley, Minnesota...I think Fox Sports Net/Espanol has a real nice card coming up this Saturday night when Ji-Hoon Kim (my cousin- not really) faces Miguel Vazquez for the vacant IBF lightweight title and Miguel Garcia takes on the wily veteran Cornelius Lock in Laredo, Texas...Has Tiger Woods hit rock bottom yet?...Isn’t it great to have football season upon us? We don’t have to pretend we like soccer and all that stuff. Can’t wait for “Hard Knocks” on HBO this week...This past week’s edition of “The Main Event” featured the aforementioned Johnson and Teddy Atlas of ESPN2...I can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com and I tweet at www.twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. We also have a Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing.
