West Australian boxer Daniel 'The Rock' Dawson, displayed his boxingprowess and determination to overcome a tough world class opponent AlexBunema from the United States, to win the vacant World Boxing Foundation(WBF) World 154lb Light Middleweight Title at the Italian Club, NorthPerth, Western Australia on 20 September 2013.
Winning the WBF World Title helped Dawson leave his mark in not onlyboxing but in professional combat sports history as the first person towin three professional world titles in three different combatdisciplines; boxing, kick boxing and Muay Thai. The only other person toaccomplish a similar feat, was former IBF Featherweight Champion TroyDorsey, who had also won a world kickboxing title prior to commencinghis boxing career.
Bunema was arguably Dawson's toughest opponent to date as he wasconstantly trying to march forward to land his reputed power punches tofinish the fight early and take the title back to the US. The Americanwas a good litmus test for Dawson to apply his conditioning and skillsagainst a world class boxer, who has fought the best fighters in theLight Middleweight and Middleweight divisions. Just falling short ofvictories in competitive fights against opponents such as SergioMartinez, Jermain Taylorand Damian Jonak, Bunema demonstrated hispunching and knockout power against the Freddie Roach trained and formerWorld Champion; Roman Karmazin, when after being outboxed by Karmazin,Bunema unleashed a vicious left hook to drop the former world championthen finished Karmazin with a barrage of punches in the 10th round.
For the past six years Dawson had been plagued with an injury to hisright wrist that affected his power punching and overall performance,after recently having surgery to rectify this problem and together heand his manager Mike Altamura took the fight with Bunema, to demonstratehis skills and conditioning whilst under the guidance of local trainerBobby Mayne and strength and conditioning coach Julian Hamiltonunderwent a training regimen to properly prepare him for this Worldtitle fight. Dawson himself had fallen short of victory in two previousworld title challenges against fellow Australian Daniel Geale for theWBO Middleweight title and more recently against the then WBO LightMiddleweight Champion Serhiy Dzinziruk due to lack of notice andadequate preparation.
This fight should be nominated for 'Fight of the Year' not only forthe display of competitiveness and explosive action but also the skillsand the empowering will to win by two world class boxers.
The judges scorecards read; Judge Ben Keilty 117-111, Judge Carl Zappia 117-111, Judge Chris Anderson 114-113
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WBF Supervisor in attendance Chris Anderson.
Promoter: CDL Boxing Promotions