Dawson outpoints Tarver again, inspires few

Chad Dawson improved to 28-0 with another wide, 12-round decision over Antonio Tarver tonight in Las Vegas, but if HBO or anyone else was looking for a scintillating performance from the 26-year old light heavyweight, it wasn't there.

Part of this is owed to Tarver's defensive ability, which was again pretty sound. Tarver (27-6, 19 KO) is not anywhere near a great fighter at this point, but he's not easy to look good against, and Dawson again didn't look particularly good.

This might have been the end of the road for Tarver, who lost on scores of 117-111 (twice) and 116-112. My scorecard had it 117-111 for Dawson, but Tarver did clearly hurt him one time in the bout.

The discussion for much of the bout -- and I'll assume the aftermath will be the same -- centered on what's next for Dawson. He has said he won't fight Glen Johnson again unless he absolutely has to, and I think that's sort of weak. I don't blame him for taking more money to fight Tarver last October and taking this rematch, but you'd like to hope Dawson would have the guts to fight the man who's given him his greatest challenge. Many feel Johnson won that fight. There's some intrigue there, and there might not be much out there that's better.

We'll have more tomorrow on this fight (or maybe not). We will have a look at what Dawson might do next.