By Dan Ambrose: Two days after his disappointing 8th round knockout loss to IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (27-0-1, 24 KOs) at the Bell Centre, in Montreal, Canada, #1 WBO, #6 WBA Jean Pascal (29-3-1, 17 KOs) says he’ll be back, and that this loss to Kovalev is not the end of his career.
Pascal is in a tough situation as far as him having a chance of ever winning another world title. Unless he goes after the belt held by WBA regular light heavyweight champion Jurgen Braehmer, Pascal is going to have to be content with watching Kovalev hold all the belts for the next four to five years, possibly more.
Never Confuse a single Defeat with a Final Defeat. I will Be Back Stronger! #Borntowin Merci! Thank You!!!
— Jean Pascal (@jeanpascalchamp) March 15, 2015
Pascal probably will never be able to capture another world title at 175 unless he can get a fight against Braehmer, unless he wants to wait on Kovalev until he retires from the sport at some point.
Pascal can always try and drop some weight to fight at 168, but I don’t think that would work out for him. He’d have to drain down to make the weight, and he’d have a tough time against the current champions. Carl Froch already beat Pascal, and Andre Ward would obviously be too good for him. Anthony Dirrell would be a problem as well for Pascal.
To be sure, the 32-year-old Pascal can still make good money in an all Canadian match-up against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson.
The Canadian fans likely won’t care that Pascal was beaten by Kovalev, because Pascal at least gave a game effort in the process of getting beaten. But even if he was just outclassed by Kovalev, the Canadian fans would still keep backing Pascal and continue to watch his fights as before.
We saw how Pascal’s fans didn’t give up on him after he was beaten by Bernard Hopkins four years ago in 2011.
The fans kept coming to see Pascal’s fights despite the fact that he stopped facing quality opposition for four solid years until he was beaten by Kovalev.
Pascal was able to sell a fight against a shop worn and arguably over the hill Lucian Bute in Canada. The fight drew zero interest in the United States, but in Canada it was a big deal for some reason.
Pascal is right about this not being his final defeat of his career. He’ll lose again in the future. I do think he’s going to start winning again, but he’s going to have to do this against lesser opposition like the guys that he burned up four years of his career fighting before facing Kovalev.
Before the Kovalev fight, Pascal had fought the following fighters since his loss to Bernard Hopkins in 2011: Roberto Feliciano Bolonti, Lucian Bute, George Blades and Aleksy Kuziemski. If Pascal goes back to fighting those type of guys, he’s going to keep winning for a long time.
I can see Pascal staying unbeaten for the next four years of his career if he continues fighting that caliber of opposition. But if he throws in a fight against Adonis Stevenson, which he surely will, he’ll lose that fight.
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