Glen Johnson praised foe Chad Dawson after losing to him in Connecticut on Saturday. The 40-year-old is undecided on his future in boxing. (AP Photo/Fred Beckham)

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Glen Johnson has lost a lot of fights he didn't agree with, and he may have feigned disbelief (perhaps out of habit) when the scores were read for Chad Dawson on Saturday, but the veteran light heavyweight contender is full of praise for his two-time foe. He's also not sure if he's going to keep going at age 40.

"He fought a smart fight," Johnson said. "He did what he had to do ... I give him the applause."

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"He was able to escape some of my bigger punches," Johnson said. "He didn't try to fight like he did in the first fight. He stayed away from it."

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"(Dawson) was moving well," he explained. "He was able to keep me off balance. Every time I got aggressive, he would move to the side I was being aggressive on and slide out to the other side. So he was getting away from me."

Dawson may not have delighted many on Saturday, but he showed what he can do with his pure skill against an older, wiser, more aggressive fighter. Johnson is surely on the downside of a long, up-and-down career (one that deserved more ups than he was awarded), but he's by no means a bad fighter. Dawson made him look old, which was probably past due.

As for his future in the ring, he's not committing to anything:

"I really don't know," the Clarendon-born United States resident admitted when asked about possible retirement after the fight. "I'll just wait and see who wants to put me to work right now."

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"At this point in time, nobody knows," he said minutes after leaving the ring. "It's all about going home and seeing if the phone rings and if the phone don't ring, then basically it is what it is. If it's my choice, I wouldn't quit yet, but you know again, I can't go to the dance by myself. So if I have an opponent to dance with, then we go to the dance."

Do fighters come any more genuine than Glen Johnson these days?