By Jim Dower: Making his first fight at light heavyweight, Jean Pascal (23-1, 15 KO’s) dominated World Boxing Council (WBC) light heavyweight champion Adrian Diaconu (26-1, 15 KO’s) on Friday night, handing Diaconu his first loss of his career at the bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Pascal, 26, knocked Diaconu down with a huge left hook in the 5th round. Later in the same round, Pascal was stunned by a big looping right hand from Diaconu that had Pascal holding on for the remainder of the round. Both fighters traded big shots for most of the fight as they traded rounds fairly regularly.
However, in the end Diaconu, 31, didn’t have the hand speed or the good enough foot work to beat Pascal. Diaconu found it hard to land his big shots, because Pascal used movement and in and out attacks to keep Diaconu from getting his big shots off.
Pascal looked superb in the 1st rounds, hitting Diaconu with blinding shots and getting the better of him in most of the exchanges. Pascal would come quickly inside and land fast right hands to the head and body and then jump back outside before Diaconu could retaliate with his own big shots. Pascal landed well to the body, and was hit very little in the first two rounds.
Indeed, at this point in the fight it looked as if it was going to be a huge mismatch, because Diaconu was just unable to cope with Pascal’s much faster hands and unable to hit him with anything big. However, in the 3rd round Pascal suddenly began to look a little winded, and stopped punching for the most part.
This allowed Diaconu to take control over the round and land some hard hooks. Diaconu made the mistake of grabbing Pascal’s left arm at one point late in the round and got drilled immediately by three big right hands from Pascal’s free hand. Unfortunately for Diaconu, it was a lesson that he failed to learn, because later on in the fight he made the same mistake an almost got knocked down for his troubles.
Pascal looked superb in the 4th and 5th rounds, using his fast hands to get in close with some hard shots to the body and head before Diaconu could respond with punches of his own. Again, Diaconu grabbed Pascal’s left arm and tried to keep him from punching and was nailed with several hard right hands and almost knocked down.
At the start of the 5th round, Diaconu landed a long left hook to the head of Pascal, who immediately fired back a left hook that knocked Diaconu stumbling backwards to the canvas. He wasn’t hurt, but rather off balance at the time that the left hook hit him.
However, Pascal went after him as if he thought he was hurt and unloaded a blizzard of punches to the head. None of them had any effect on Diaconu and near the end of the round he fired back with a big clubbing right hand that hurt Pascal and had him holding on for the remainder of the round.
In rounds six through eight, Pascal controlled the action with his better work rate and his faster hands. The rounds were close, but it was clear that Pascal did just enough to win them by his flashy two and three punch combinations.
Diaconu came back in the 9th and 11th rounds, landing some massive shots. At the end of the 11th, Diaconu appeared to hurt Pascal with a big looping right hand. However, Pascal continued fighting hard until the end of the round and showed no ill effects from the punch.
In the 12th round, both fighters traded big shots until the bell. Pascal got the better of the action with his fast hands and was able to avoid many of Diaconu’s punches.
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