Straight Writes and Jabs: An Inside Look at Another Year in Boxing

Chad Dawson’s KO by

Vitali seldom threw his jab with authority during the latter stages of the fight. Each man showed a good chin. “It’s never easy in a fight,” Klitschko has said. That was particularly true this time.This observer scored the bout 116–112 inVitali’s favor.The official judges were more pro-Klitschko,rendering a 119–109, 118–110, 118–110 verdict. Chisora fought like a professional fighter. It’s too bad that he didn’t act like one before the bout. STRAIGHT WRITES AND JABS 163 Too often in boxing,medical issues involving fighter safety go unaddressed. Chad Dawson’s KO by The Greek dramatist Aeschylus (525–456 BC) wrote,“The first casualty of war is truth.” Boxing is war.And while the essence of ring combat is truth, a lot of what goes on behind the scenes is neither honorable nor honest.With that in mind, there’s an issue relating to the September 8, 2012, fight in Oakland between Andre Ward and Chad Dawson that should be explored. Ward entered the fight with an unblemished 25-and-0 record. By virtue of his “Super Six” tournament conquests,he was widely recognized as super-middleweight champion of the world.Dawson sported a 30-and1 ledger and was the #1 light-heavyweight in boxing. Prior to the bout, rumors circulated that Dawson had been knocked down and badly hurt by Edison Miranda in a sparring session. Team Dawson denied the rumors.Walter Kane (Chad’s attorney) says that, to his knowledge, no one from the California State Athletic Commission asked anyone in the Dawson camp about them. Dawson underwent the usual pro forma pre-fight medical examination, but that’s all. In the fight itself, Chad looked tentative and weak. He’d been knocked down twice before in his career; by Eric Harding in 2006 and Tomasz Adamek a year later. Each time, he’d gotten up and won a unanimous decision by a comfortable margin. Ward knocked Dawson down in the third, fourth, and tenth rounds en route to a tenth-round stoppage.Andre is a superb fighter, but he’s not a knockout puncher. InWard’s previous eight outings, the only opponent he’d KO’d was Shelby Pudwell (who was knocked out by John Duddy in one round). In the entire “Super Six” tournament,Andre didn’t knock an opponent down. After Ward-Dawson, the rumors multiplied. Miguel Diaz told BoxingScene.com that, in the ninth round of a ten-round sparring session, “Miranda executed something that I’d been telling him to do 164 THOMAS HAUSER the whole workout—left, right hand, left hook—and he knocked him [Dawson] down. It was devastating for me because I don’t want to see something like that, but it happened. He was hurt. He tried to get up. He went down again and got up. I screamed to Rafael Garcia [Dawson’s assistant trainer],‘Come and help him.’” On September 14, Diaz told this writer that Dawson was knocked down by Miranda, fell on his face, tried to get up, and pitched face-first into the ring ropes. On September 19, John Scully (Dawson’s trainer) added fuel to the fire when he sent out a mass e-mail that read,“Just a note for future reference :If before a big fight—or ANY fight,really—it doesn’t matter if my boxer has gotten hit by a tractor trailer three days ago,been dropped seven times in sparring, lost 42 pounds in the steam room over the course of one week, and just got dropped to his knees in the gym five minutes before you ask . . . I’m still telling you he feels great.What else can a fighter or his trainer be expected to say?” So what really happened? This past week, I spoke with Kane, Scully, and Dawson.They all told me the same thing. “I got knocked down,” Chad acknowledged. “But it was a flash knockdown. I wasn’t hurt. I got back up right away and finished the rest of the sparring session. Stuff like that happens all the time in boxing.The only reason we didn’t talk about it was, I knew people would make a big deal out of it and it wasn’t a big deal.” Scully elaborated on that theme, saying, “Chad was sparring ten rounds that day. He got hit with a left...