Credit: Bob Lévesque) By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC 175lb champion Jean Pascal (30-3-1, 17 KOs) called IBF/WBA/WBC light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (28-0-1, 25 KOs) a racist during their press conference on Monday at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
Pascal, 32, said that Kovalev is a racist and that he’s going to make it a point to teach him a lesson when they face each other two months from now in a rematch on January 30th on HBO Championship Boxing from the Bell Centre in Montreal.
“This fight is personal. I’m fighting ignorance. We need to teach this Russian a good lesson. I’m not trying to play the racist card — he’s racist,” said Pascal via the montrealgazette.com. “He’s not a role model. He has no class, nor does he respect anyone in Quebec.”
According to the Montreal Gazette, Kovalev had posted a photo of a monkey on his Twitter site in the past and directed it as a barb towards WBC 175lb champion Adonis Stevenson.
Kovalev didn’t appreciate Pascal’s comments and he says he plans on shutting him up when they face each other in the ring on January 30th.
Kovalev already knocked Pascal out in the 8th round last March at the Bell Centre. There’s not much reason for a second fight between them other than for some boxing fans who think that Pascal can do better than he did the previous time. I’m not sure that Pascal can do better though, because Kovalev figured him out pretty well by the 6th round last time they fought.
At this point, Kovalev will probably have an easier time beating Pascal the second time around because Pascal had no defense to Kovalev’s jab. Kovalev has too much reach and size over him, and we’ll probably see the same in a rematch. It’s not a great fight for the boxing fans because they’ve already seen Kovalev knock Pascal out once, so there’s no drama there.
When you’ve got a fight where you know who’s going to win because of a previous fight, it’s not as interesting. Pascal can try and make it interesting with his press conference comments, but I don’t think he’ll be able to do it by just talking. It takes more than talking to get boxing fans interested in a rematch between fighters.
“That’s trash, what he said. It’s his opinion. I’m not a trash talker. I’m a boxer. I’ll close his mouth Jan. 30 — all time and forever,” Kovalev said. “Whoever follows me on social media understands who I am. I love Montreal, Canada and Canadian fans. I’ll put that between us forever.”
Pascal is going to need to come up with a lot more than this kind of stuff if he wants to get boxing fans interested in a second fight between the two of them. Pascal was not only beaten by Kovalev, but he was arguably beaten in his last fight by Cuban Yunieski Gonzalez July in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pascal appeared to lose a 10 round decision in that fight by the lesser known Gonzalez, but the judges gave him the win.
Pascal looked really bad in that fight and he looked like the clear loser. It’s not good that Pascal is facing Kovalev in a rematch off the back of his last fight against Gonzalez, because he didn’t show that he’s improved since his last defeat.
Fans are more interested in seeing Kovalev fight Artur Beterbiev and Andre Ward than seeing Pascal trotted out for another knockout. It’s like fans are about to see a poor movie that they already saw before, and it’s not really interesting. If Pascal had redeemed himself by beating Gonzalez conclusively and then beat someone good like Beterbiev, then it would be more interesting to see him and Kovalev fight each other again.
It’ll be a pity if Kovalev’s career winds up with him getting stuck fighting the same guys he knocked out previously over and over again instead of bringing new blood for him to fight. Boxing fans would be better off seeing Kovalev fight Eleider Alvarez, Yunieski Gonzalez, Sullivan Barrera, Isaac Chilemba, Juergen Braehmer or Isaac Chilemba. At least those fighters are guys that Kovalev hasn’t fought previously.
Pascal never even avenged his loss to Bernard Hopkins.
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