Golden Boy works on protest, WBC to review Dawson's TKO of Hopkins

As originally reported by Ringtv.com, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer reiterated that he plans to file a protest seeking to overturn Saturday night's second-round technical knockout victory by Chad Dawson, who dethroned Bernard Hopkins as RING and WBC light heavyweight beltholder in an HBO Pay Per View televised clash from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

"I talked to [WBC President] Jose Sulaiman, and he said that they are going to review it. The RING is going to review it as well, so this guy didn't get the belts. This guy may have gotten the decision, but I will fight for Bernard to keep the belts, so we are obviously going to file a protest," said Schaefer, who must make his appeal with the California State Athletic Commission within five days.

"We have informed George Dodd, the executive director of the California State Athletic Commission, that we will file a protest. Our attorneys together with Bernard's attorneys are working on it today. We want to achieve three things. We want to ask the California Athletic Commission to overturn the decision and we want the WBC and The RING to continue to recognize Bernard as their champion."

Referee Pat Russell ruled that the 46-year-old Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KOs) could not continue after becoming entangled with the 29-year-old Dawson (31-1, 17 KOs) and getting shoved to the canvas, resulting in an injury to his shoulder.

Hopkins was later X-rayed and examined by Dr. Sam Thurber and released from the the California Hospital Medical Center, where he was diagnosed to have separated the acromioclavicular or AC joint of his left shoulder, which connects the collar bone and shoulder blade.

WBC Secretary General Mauricio Sulaiman said that his organization will review the fight.

"The fight was not shown in Mexico, so neither my father nor I have seen it," said Mauricio Sulaiman from Mexico. "We have received a letter from Golden Boy, and we are awaiting the arrival of a DVD tomorrow. We're waiting for the report from the supervisors and we'll look into it on Monday morning."

Dawson's promoter, Gary Shaw, could not be reached for this report on Sunday, but he told Yahoo!Sports that he blamed Hopkins.

"Let Bernard take his paycheck and refund it to everybody," said Shaw. "We came to fight. What I really feel is Bernard is old, and he gave it all he could for as long as he could. He beat [Jean] Pascal [in May], but there was no way he could have beaten Chad."

Lem Satterfield can be reached at lem.satterfield@gmail.com