Former champ Chad Dawson took a twelve round majority decision from 47-year-old WBC light heavyweight champ Bernard Hopkins in a rematch of their controversial meeting last October. Their first bout was ruled a second-round TKO for Dawson - later changed to a no contest - after Hopkins was tossed to the canvas and hurt his shoulder. The pairing of Dawson and Hopkins promised a dull fight with lots of wrestling and clinching and head-butting from Hopkins ... and that's exactly what it produced. A Hopkins headbutt opened a cut on the side of Dawson's eye in round four. There's really not much more to say about the fight. Dawson did enough to win but was not terribly impressive ... though no one ever looks good against Hopkins. And Hopkins, at this point in his career, throws one punch at a time and then lunges in head first to tie up his opponent. Ugly. Two judges got it right at 117-111 for Dawson while the third judge - Luis Rivera - somehow scored the bout even at 114-114.
Punch stats underscore just how little action there was with Dawson landing 151 of 431 punches (35%) to only 106 of 400 (26%) for Hopkins.
After the bout, Dawson, 29, called out super middleweight champion Andre Ward. Hopkins, who - as always - believed he won the fight, left the ring before being interviewed. Hopkins is a future Hall of Famer and remains an amazing physical specimen ... for a 47-year-old. He has nothing left to prove in the ring and should retire ... but he probably won't.
On the undercard, undefeated American heavyweight Seth Mitchell survived a rocky first round before storming back to stop Chazz Witherspoon in round three.
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