Pascal defeats Kuziemski, but injures shoulder

By Boxing News - 12/14/2012 - Comments

pascal1By Jim Dower: Coming off of a long layoff of over a year and a half former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (27-2-1, 16 KO’s) defeated 35-year-old Aleksy Kuziemski (23-5, 7 KO’s) by a 10 round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada.

The final judges scores were 100-88, 98-90 and 98-90. What made this especially impressive for Pascal was that he fought with only his right hand from the midpoint of the 4th round for the remainder of the fight after getting his left arm caught on the ring support strap while attempting to throw a left hook in that round.

Pascal was able to get around this problem by changing stance from the orthodox to southpaw and going right hand happy against the over-matched Kuziemski.

Pascal knocked Kuziemski down twice in the fight, once in the 6th round and another time at the start of the 10th. The knockdown in the 6th came late in the round when Kuziemski made a dumb mistake of trying to pull up his trunks and then his turning his back on Pascal and walking away from him, as if Pascal wouldn’t do anything. Pascal took advantage of this by charging Kuziemski and hitting him with several hard right hands that dropped him.

Late in the 7th, Pascal hurt Kuziemski when he attempted to touch glove with Pascal after hitting on the break. Instead of touching gloves out of courtesy, Pascal ignored the gesture from Kuziemski and charged him, hitting him with a flurry of right hands that staggered him.

In the 10th, Pascal knocked Kuziemski down with a big right hand at the start of the round that send Kuziemski staggering backwards and then falling on the canvas.

Overall, Pascal looked pretty good but he was awfully easy to hit and I don’t think he would do well against some of the top light heavyweights in the division like Tavoris Cloud if he fights like this.

Pascal will now be facing WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson in a rematch on March 23rd.



Comments are closed.