Sergey Kovalev overwhelmed Jean Pascal, leaving his new trainer Freddie Roach no choice but to throw in the towel at the end of round seven?
Saturday night at the Bell Center in Montreal, Canada, WBA/IBF/WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey ?Krusher? Kovalev (29-0-1, 26 KOs) the knockout artist from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, by way of Kopeysk, Russia, successfully defended his titles by overwhelming Jean Pascal (30-4, 17 KOs), the former light heavyweight champion from Laval, Quebec, Canada, by way of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, leaving his new trainer Freddie Roach no choice but to throw in the towel at the end of round seven.
After their somewhat competitive first fight in March of last year, it was hoped that Pascal, especially with the able assistance of a Hall of Fame trainer in his corner, might have added some new wrinkles to his game. Prior to the fight much was made of newfound boxing skills. But once the bell rang, it was obvious that not only had Pascal learned nothing new, he had actually regressed and is no longer a credible challenger.
Fighting out of the red corner in black trunks with red and white trim, Kovalev was as dominant as usual. Smart, self-assured, and destructive, with a dash of good old-fashioned anger thrown into the mix, he wasted no time in bringing the fight to his ill prepared and uninspired opponent.
Pascal, fighting out of the blue corner in brown trunks with gold trim, brought nothing into the ring. His vaunted athleticism was nonexistent. His punch output was pitiful. The number of punches he landed bordered on the embarrassing. In their first fight Pascal at least tried to win. That was not true Saturday night.
Detailing all the punches thrown and landed by Kovalev and the few punches thrown and landed by Pascal is discomforting. Suffice to say that Pascal got beaten up and Freddie Roach did him a big favor by stopping it when he did.
After seven one-sided rounds, Kovalev had landed 165 of 412 punches thrown (40%) to a paltry 30 of 108 (28%) for Pascal.
In the power punch department, the discrepancy was no less jarring. Kovalev landed 78 of 202 (39%) to 16 of 48 (33%) for Pascal.
After the fight, Pascal sat in his corner with a glazed look in his eyes.
Kovalev by contrast was as happy as could be, having hurt Pascal repeatedly for his supposed intemperate remarks.
?I don?t like rematches,? said Kovalev, ?but this was a personal fight because Pascal is a special person. I mean that he?s not liked by anyone around him and don?t respect fighters. Everybody he don?t respect. Believe me, in Montreal everybody said me like, ?Kick his ass.? I would fight him more rounds and make him more pain, punish him more. I don?t respect him at all. I punished not good person and everybody understand. I want to unify all four titles. I want to fight Adonis Chickenson.?
Then Kovalev made chicken sounds.
All in all, it was not HBO?s finest moment. The rematch between Kovalev and Pascal was noncompetitive and therefore unsatisfying. The same was true of the opening bout between Dmitry Mikhaylenko and Karim Mayfield.
