By Dave Lahr: World Boxing Council light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1, 16 KO’s) was elated after escaping with an 11 round technical decision win over former light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (29-1, 17 KO’s) last Saturday night at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada. Pascal, 27, was exhausted and getting lit up by Dawson in the 11th round and looking like he was on the verge of being stopped. However, sometimes luck is on your side, as it was surely on Pascal’s side last Saturday night. Just when Dawson was putting on the coup de grace, Pascal turned his head and accidently rammed Dawson in the face, cutting his eye badly.

The cut was terrible, but the timing was a god send for Pascal, because it got him out of a tough situation where he likely would have been knocked out the way things were going at the time. Now, Pascal is a national hero in Canada and is basically able to call the shots in terms of who he wants to fight next. Pascal still has to fight Dawson again due to the rematch clause that Dawson had in the contract with Pascal, but because it was written in that Pascal has to fight Dawson next, he’s able to get one interim fight in before facing Dawson again. After the fight, Pascal had this to say to HBO analyst Larry Merchant: “I want the best in the world – [Bernard] Hopkins, [Joe] Calzaghe. I want to prove I am one of the best. Jean Pascal is coming to America.”

Pascal also said he’d be interesting in fight IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, but said “He has to come to me.” Pascal will take whatever the best money fight is of the bunch, but he probably only has one choice and that’s to fight Bute. Calzaghe certainly isn’t going to be coming back to fight Pascal. If he did make a comeback, it wouldn’t be against a fighter with the hand speed and power of someone like Pascal. And Hopkins is looking to get a fight against WBA heavyweight champion David Haye. He probably won’t get that fight, but I can’t see Hopkins wanting to face Pascal because of his hand speed and his difficult style.

Pascal would give Hopkins a lot of problems with his hit and run style of fighting. Still, it would be a great fight if Hopkins was interested. I think Pascal would win unless he ran out of gas late in the fight like he did against Dawson last Saturday. In that case, I think Hopkins would have a chance to stop Pascal if he didn’t mess things up by clinching too much and not letting his hands go. It seemed strange that Pascal wasn’t appearing eager to fight Bute in his post fight comments. That makes me wonder whether Pascal is interested in taking that challenge. It was hard to miss how ambivalent Pascal sounded about fighting Bute. Could it be that Pascal is afraid of Bute? Maybe he should be, because I think Bute would beat him.