Ward vs Dawson: Chad Dawson Believes Fight of the Year Is Possible

Most boxing fans will at least raise an eyebrow at this, but Chad Dawson believes his September 8 fight with Andre Ward has Fight of the Year potential, and won't be as dull as many fear.

Here's what Dawson told The Boxing Lab:

"People think that the fight will be boring because of our styles but I think it will be great fight. I think our styles will go great together. I think it could be a Fight of the Year Candidate.

"The fans are going to see a totally different Chad Dawson. They will see the lightning speed, the footwork and everything else. It will all be on display," Dawson told The Boxing Lab.

Do you think there's any reasonable shot at this? I mean, really set aside the instant idea that they're boring and give it a serious think. Can you imagine these two coming together, their styles clashing in a way that makes for an exciting fight?

I've become more excited for this bout as I've thought about it. But here are two things I'm relatively certain will prove to be true:

• The fight will not be a Fight of the Year contender. I don't think they have that in them, even if it's as good as it could be.
• The fight will not be boring.

I'm expecting it to be a fairly entertaining, tactical battle between two high-level professional boxers. It just seems that more often than not, when we have such dramatic fears over something being dreadful to watch, it winds up not being that bad. Perhaps expectations being low does play a part in that, but I really don't think these two are going to have some terrible bore of a fight. It's kind of like a reverse Bradley-Alexander, which had high expectations and fizzled.

Ward-Dawson has high and low expectations depending on how you're viewing the fight and what reason(s) you have for watching boxing. It's low if you're excitement-first, high if you're more concerned about rankings and accomplishments and things like that.