TARVER'S HISTORY OF REVENGE

While one could make the argument for Antonio Tarver having a great deal of difficulty when he faces Chad Dawson for the second time Saturday May 9th, Tarver has been in this position before. Three times. And in each rematch, it was Tarver who left the ring with a win.

May 6, 2009 - by William Dettloff

Fight fans could be forgiven for not giving Antonio Tarver much chance to take the IBF light heavyweight title back from Chad Dawson in his upcoming rematch on May 9. Dawson is younger, faster, stronger, by all indications hungrier, and he already knows how to beat Tarver; he did it last October by unanimous decision in which his margin of victory was a combined 23 points.

Tarver's supporters do have cause for hope, however, and despite the odds against him, it is not entirely false hope. As a professional, Tarver has never lost a rematch. Not to Eric Harding, not to Roy Jones, not to Glen Johnson. He predicts the same will be true against Dawson.

"Dawson's a young lion, and he had a high work rate during our first fight," Tarver said during a break in training. "I missed a few times with my power shots but that's what it is; it's a game of inches. But I always learn from my losses, and as Roy Jones, Glen Johnson and Eric Harding will tell you, I never lose twice to the same man. Dawson will learn that lesson too on May 9."

Though it sounds like typical fighter rhetoric, you have to give Tarver the benefit of the doubt. He's been here before. Few would have predicted he would be able to stop Harding in a rematch. During their first fight in 2000, Harding dominated Tarver, landing power punches almost at will and nearly stopping him late in the fight. Tarver was down in the 11th and barely made it to the final bell.

Fast forward 25 months and Harding-Tarver II looked in the early rounds a lot like Harding-Tarver I. But Tarver exploded in the fourth, hurting Harding badly and flooring him. He dropped him twice more in the fifth, and the first step toward Tarver's eventual rematch-trifecta went down in the books.

Tarver was an underdog in his rematch with Roy Jones too. Even though he had given Jones all he could handle in the first fight, which he lost by a majority decision in Las Vegas, most observers felt Jones was still the best fighter in the world and simply had an off-night.

Plus, it had been Jones' first fight since his win over John Ruiz for a piece of the heavyweight title. He blamed his sub-par performance against Tarver on the effects of getting back down to the 175-pound weight limit after facing Ruiz at 193 pounds. This led Tarver to ask Jones just before the opening bell, "Got any excuses tonight, Roy?"

If he did, he didn't get a chance to voice them. Tarver knocked Jones cold in the second round.

For his rematch with Johnson, Tarver didn't need a big punch. He just needed to train right. In their first fight, Johnson, a hard-luck veteran who had just won the IBF title by knocking out Jones, simply out-hustled and out-worked a lethargic Tarver to win a split decision. In the rematch seven months later, a conditioned, inspired Tarver turned the tables and won a unanimous decision.

It is likely Tarver's age more than anything that Dawson and his people are counting on to end Tarver's streak of second-chance victories.

"There's always a first and this is going to be the first," Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, the former light heavyweight champion and Dawson's trainer says. "Before the first fight he was talking he was going to do this and he was going to do that, and I said when that bell rings, it's going to be a whole different situation and sure enough it was," Muhammad said.

"In the second fight Chad's going to capitalize on all the things he saw in the first fight. What Antonio Tarver brings to this fight is nothing. He's 40 years old. He's a year older, a year slower, so I'm not worried about his record in rematches. Not at all."

Maybe he shouldn't be. Dawson does have all the advantages, after all. But so did Harding. So did Jones. And so did Johnson.