IBF light heavyweight titlist Chad Dawson suffered a ligament injury in his right hand, and the unbeaten rising star's HBO debut is being postponed. Dawson was set to rematch Antonio Tarver, whom he easily outpointed last October.
Promoter Gary Shaw says that the injury is not a break, and that Dawson will be in a soft cast for two weeks before being able to continue training, making him absolutely unable to fight on March 14.
The HBO schedule really has few openings, at least as far as going unopposed is concerned. Bob Arum's Tijuana Thunder PPV is available on March 28 and HBO likely wouldn't run against that, and the following Saturday has Golden Boy's Lightweight Lightning show (distributed by HBO) as well as Timothy Bradley-Kendall Holt on Showtime. The network is running Paul Williams-Winky Wright on April 11, and Showtime may have Carl Froch-Jermain Taylor on April 18. Juan Manuel Lopez will be in action on HBO against Gerry Penalosa on the 25th. The Saturday after that is the Hatton-Pacquiao showdown.
It's going to be tough to find a spot for this rematch, not to mention it's not like this is a fight people are licking their chops to ever see again. If possible (and it likely is not), it wouldn't be bad to see this fight paired up with Williams-Wright on April 11. Neither fight belongs in Las Vegas and both are going to do rotten houses, so maybe combining the fights makes for a better live gate. I mean HBO's already on the hook for both fights anyway. But getting the promoters and fighters and arenas to agree to all that won't be so easy.