MAY 9 REVIEWED: Dawson W12 Tarver etc.

Things went much as expected in Saturday’s big fights, with Chad Dawson outpointing Antonio Tarver in their rematch on HBO and Marco Huck battering Vitaliy Rusal in Germany.

The Dawson-Tarver light-heavyweight title fight was similar to the first one, as had been widely predicted. Dawson was too young, too fast and too athletic, but he had a couple of uncomfortable moments in the meeting of southpaws. Tarver seemed to hurt him with left uppercuts and unloaded some combinations. Dawson rallied to back up the 40-year-old ex-champ and he was a worthy winner, but he never at any time looked like stopping Tarver, who not only has a good chin but keeps a tight defence when under fire.

It was a satisfactory performance by Dawson in his HBO debut. He did what was expected, and it was probably unrealistic to expect anything more than another unanimous decision win.

Dawson is skilled, speedy and triggers off classy combinations, but he isn’t looking quite the future superstar that he once appeared to be. Tarver troubled him at times but couldn’t maintain the pressure — or wasn’t allowed to do so. There is a worrying vulnerability about Dawson at times, a tendency to fade out of fights, as Max Kellerman mentioned in the HBO commentary. Tarver fought well, I thought, and he might have beaten a number of good light-heavyweights on this night, but Dawson got in front early and stayed in front. He definitely comes into the hard-to-beat category, and although he didn’t look super-impressive maybe it isn’t easy to do so against a crafty veteran such as Tarver.

In Germany on Saturday, Marco Huck predictably retained his European cruiser title by crushing the previously unbeaten Ukrainian, Vitaliy Rusal, who just wasn’t big enough or strong enough to hold off the German fighter.

Huck has been matched brilliantly in his last few fights. The opponents, Fabio Tuiach, Geoffrey Battelo and now Rusal, all had respectable records (one loss between them in a combined 64 bouts) but simply couldn’t stand up to Huck’s heavy artillery.

Going into the bout I wasn't sure what to expect from Rusal, but it was soon obvious that he would be overpowered and I thought he did well to make it as far as the fifth round. It was typical fare from Huck: hands up, let the other man throw some punches at his defensive shield, then unload the big hooks and right hands in sudden bursts. When someone is as big and as strong as Huck this simple but effective strategy works rather well. He isn’t the most elegant of fighters, but as the Setanta studio analyst Steve Bunce pointed out, Huck makes for exciting fights.

For me, the disappointment of the weekend was Aaron Williams, who drifted to defeat against Yoan Pablo Hernandez, the German-promoted Cuban cruiserweight, in an eight-rounder on Saturday’s show in Germany.

I was one of those who thought that Williams could pull off the upset, but although he boxed stylishly in spots he was bullied out of the fight and lost clearly. Strangely enough, Williams had his best round in the eighth when, perhaps because there were no more rounds to worry about, he let his hands go and strung his punches together in quite a skilful manner. Of course, far too little, far too late. The 80-72 score in favour of Hernandez was a joke and the 79-76 assessment wasn’t much better, but the 78-74 score of the third judge was not outrageous: I thought 77-75 would have been appropriate but there seemed no doubt who had won.

Hernandez looked the stronger, tougher, better-conditioned, gamer fighter. He pressed forward, hands up, looking to land heavy lefts from his southpaw style, and Williams too often gave the impression of backing out of the fight. Sometimes Williams was just retreating, at other times he ducked so low it was as if he was trying to dive away from danger. Hernandez was always the man who looked as if he wanted to fight.

I do feel, though, that if Williams had stood his ground and really challenged Hernandez he most likely would have got knocked out. Williams does not take a punch at all well. (Neither does Hernandez, come to that, but the Cuban always looked much the sturdier fellow.) In the seventh round it looked as if Williams had been badly shaken by a left hand, but he held on and survived — and then produced an excellent round of boxing in the eighth, a round in which Hernandez mostly covered up and made sure he didn’t run into a heavy shot.

It might have helped Williams had trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad been in the corner with him, but Eddie was on duty with Chad Dawson in Las Vegas although Setanta commentator John Rawling curiously thought that the ex-champ was in the corner in Germany.

Former champion Richie Woodhall, now a trainer and Setanta analyst, was correct in that Williams had “boxed a clever bout”, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t a winning bout.

Boxing on the back foot, fighting in spurts and giving the impression of looking to bail out of the fight isn’t a winning formula for a visiting boxer appearing on a promotion in Germany — or anywhere else, for that matter.