By Jim Dower: Earlier tonight, WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-1-1, 16 KO’s) and Bernard Hopkins (51-5-2, 32 KO’s) fought to a 12 round majority draw at the Pepsi Colisseum, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The scores were 114-112 Hopkins, 113-113, 114-114. This was a fight where neither fighter could really be happy with their performance. While Hopkins obviously finished strong in the second part of the fight and was able to salvage a draw out of it, there’s no escaping the fact that Hopkins was knocked down twice in the fight.

Hopkins said one of the knockdowns shouldn’t have counted when he was hit in the back of the head, but unfortunately did. He still went down and that and the other knockdown put Hopkins in a big hole that he was never fully able to climb out of. Pascal looked bad throughout and didn’t seem to know what to do in there with Hopkins. The one thing that Pascal could have done was to let his hands go by throwing more punches, because he only averaged a small amount thrown in every round. Had he thrown more punches, this would have been a much easier fight for him.

As for a rematch, I don’t see how it can happen. Hopkins, after failing to win a decision in Canada, won’t likely want to tempt fate by going over there to fight Pascal for a second time. The last place that Hopkins will want to go is back to Canada to potentially have the same thing happen. And the other hand, Pascal and Hopkins probably can’t fight in the U.S. because Hopkins isn’t a big draw over there and it wouldn’t bring in nearly the same kind of money that the fight could attract in Canada.

Hopkins may have to settle for just having looked better than expected. That in itself may be victory enough for him. Hopkins can now used the some of the clout that he got for this fight and move on to take on some other fighters elsewhere. Hopkins might make more money against Pascal, but he would have to be willing to fight again in Canada and Pascal would have to agree to it. I don’t know that he would, because Pascal has other options available to him besides just facing a difficult fighter like Hopkins again. Pascal seemed to not understand how to deal with Hopkins’ style of fighting. I can’t see that changing in a rematch, so it’s best that Pascal not tempt fate by fighting Hopkins again.