By Dan Ambrose: After beating bottom ranked challenger Danny Santiago last night in a 9th round stoppage, World Boxing Association (WBA) light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov (12-1, 8 KO’s) could be facing former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (26-2-1, 16 KO’s) in his next fight.

Pascal approached Shumenov after the fight on Saturday night and suggested that he fight him in Canada where Pascal now lives and fights out of. Shumenov was open to the idea except he wants to fight Pascal in Las Vegas, Nevada. Either way, it’s a decent fight. Pascal looked horrible in his last two fights against Bernard Hopkins, and Shumenov didn’t look all that impressive in beating Santiago last night.

Shumenov hit and ran all night long until opening up with a flurry of shots in the 9th after hurting Santiago with a right hand first. Shumenov looked painfully slow and robotic as he was unloading 23 uninterrupted shots while Santiago attempted to cover up. Shumenov was opening and closing his mouth the entire time, looking a lot like a fish out of water.

It’s a bad habit Shumenov has got because sooner or later a good fighter, not the no. 15 ranked Santiago, is going to tag him in the mouth while he’s opening and closing it and possibly break his jaw. He’s got to get accustomed to clinching down on his mouth piece when he fights so that he doesn’t hurt in the future. That wasn’t a spectacular performance – far from it. Shumenov can punch a little bit, but his lack of hand speed and his mechanical way of fighting will cause him problems when he steps it up against a quality fighter some day, like Chad Dawson, Bernard Hopkins and possibly Pascal.