| BoxingTalk Story |
 |
19/11/2005
By Wyatt Johnston
In Friday's main event at Hartford, Connecticut, hometown fighter Chad Dawson dominated Ian Gardner in what was expected to be a close fight. Gardner had a good first round, and was awkward all night as usual, but Dawson showed excellent patience and cornered Gardner throughout the fight enabling him to land solid punches. As the second half of the scheduled twelve rounder began, Gardner became frustrated when he could not land anything of his own. The undefeated Dawson put Gardner down and through the ropes with a combination in the eighth round. Gardner barely fought at all from that point on but Dawson remained patient until the eleventh when he finally stopped Garnder. In that round, Dawson dropped Gardner for the first of three times with a short right uppercut. A barrage of punches put Gardner down again, and finally a perfect chopping left put Gardner down for the third time of the round and fourth time overall, forcing referee Michael Ortega to stop the fight at 1:12 of the eleventh. Dawson moved up to super middleweight and improved his pro record to 20-0 with 14 KOs. He looks to be a bright star in the making. Gardner suffers his first stoppage and falls to 19-3 with 7 KOs. source: ShoBox on Showtime
