After walking through the Super Six tournament with nary a scratch, finding worthy opponents for Andre Ward in the 168-pound division seemed a futile effort, so he turned his attention upwards, facing number one light heavyweight Chad Dawson for Ward's assorted titles last night (Sat., Sept. 8, 2012) in Oakland, California.

While Ward had made such fighters as Mikkel Kessler and Carl Froch look like amateurs, the top 10 pound-for-pound ranked Dawson was, on paper, a whole different animal.

Not different enough.

Things went south for Dawson in a hurry; after two close rounds, the notoriously light-punching Ward slammed home a perfect left hook, sending Dawson to a knee, and never looked back. That round and the seven after it were one long argument for Ward's status as one of the best on the planet as he completely outclassed the bigger Dawson, dropping him two more times before Steve Smoger called the bout to a halt in frame 10.

Dawson averaged less than five landed punches per round.

This was supposed to be a boring clash of technicians. Instead, we got one of the more impressive and unexpected ass-kickings of the year.

Well done, Mr. Ward.

The opening feature had all the makings of a slugfest as heavy hitters Antonio DeMarco and John Molina locked horns for the latter's WBC lightweight strap.

Again, things were a bit more one-sided than advertised.

The very first real punch of the bout, a left straight from DeMarco, scrambled Molina's brains and sent him stumbling into the ropes, at which point DeMarco fired everything as Molina slowly folded over. The ref called the bout to a halt at about the 46-second mark.

Not bad for an opening act.

For quick results and full play-by-play of the bouts click here.