By Jim Dower: Former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (32-5-1, 19 KOs) has ended his 5-month retirement, and he’ll be coming back next month to face novice fighter Steve Bosse (1-0) on June 29 at a still to be determined venue.
The fight will likely take place in Canada. The 36-year-old Bosse is a former MMA fighter, who recently turned pro last February at heavyweight in stopping Julio Cuellar Cabrera (12-7, 11 KOs) in the 2nd round.
This fight reminds me a lot of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor mismatch that was sold to the boxing and MMA public last August. That was a fight between a highly skilled boxer Mayweather facing an MMA fighter with a 0-0 record in McGregor. Surprisingly, the Nevada State Athletic omission sanctioned the Mayweather-McGregor fight and let I go ahead. They even counted it as a real professional fight, which allowed Mayweather to pad his record with his 50th win. Bosse is going to be as badly over-matched as McGregor was. Frankly, it’ll be more of mismatch, because Bosse doesn’t have the same striking ability that McGregor had going for him against Mayweather.
It’s unclear what weight Pascal will be fighting Bosse at. Pascal’s weight class is 175, not heavyweight. Bosse will be asking a lot of himself to have to melt down 50 pounds to fight Pascal at 175. This is a fight that could take place at cruiserweight, but that’s about it. Bosse would have to lose way too much weight for him to get down to 175 to meet Pascal at his normal weight class.
Pascal, 35, is coming off a 6th round stoppage win over Ahmed Elbiali (16-1, 13 KOs) last December. Elbiali is a guy with little boxing experience as well, and Pascal took advantage of that by battering him with shots for five rounds before knocking him out in the 6th round. That was supposed to be a career-ending fight for Pascal, but the Bosse opportunity came around and he chose to take it. Pascal must be getting decent money for him to come out of retirement to fight an MMA fighter.
Hopefully, Pascal doesn’t get any ideas about continuing his boxing career against the quality fighters at light heavyweight, because that would be a bad idea. If Pascal needs money, then he’ll probably be fine as long as he faces novices like Bosse. WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson would be a good option for Pascal if he wants to get a good payday and then retire off it, but I don’t think it’ll end well for him. Pascal can’t beat the top fighters at 175. He’s not that type of fighter anymore, but he can beat the pretenders like Elbialia and obviously novices like Bosse.