Sergey Kovalev dominates Jean Pascal in one-sided title fight rematch
Sergey Kovalev continued his snail's pace march toward a fight with former super middleweight champion Andre Ward, dominating rival Jean Pascal on Saturday at the Bell Centre in Montreal and stopping him after seven one-sided rounds. Kovalev retained his IBF-WBA-WBO light heavyweight titles with his 26th knockout while improving to 29-0-1.
Trainer Freddie Roach, in his first bout in Pascal's corner, told referee Michael Griffin that Pascal could not go on after the seventh round. He could have stopped it as soon as the fifth, and considered it after the sixth but Pascal talked him out of it.
But the punch statistics showed the brutally one-sided nature of the bout. Kovalev outanded Pascal 31-1 in the fifth, 19-3 in the sixth and 30-4 in the seventh. Pascal landed in single digits in six the seven rounds. For the bout, Kovalev landed 165 of 412, while Pascal connected on 30 of 108.
It was a brutal fight, made worse by Kovalev's decision to punish Pascal for calling him a racist prior to the fight.
"I wanted to fight more and make him feel pain," Kovalev said."I wnated to punish him more."
He did, and the effects of that beating could take a toll on Pascal for a long time. Kovalev stopped him in the eighth round last year and while it made next-to-no sense to rematch them, the bout was made again so that both Kovalev and Ward could load up on easy interim fights while moving toward a showdown.
A Kovalev-Ward fight is highly intriguing, but don't hold your breath waiting for it. Ward is going to fight Sullivan Barrera on March 26 in Oakland, Calif., and then both men will have at least one more fight against lesser opponents before finally meeting.
And given that Ward has had just three fights in the last four-plus years to this point, it's asking a lot for him to get three fights in during the same calendar year. The last time Ward fought three times in one calendar year was 2009.
Kovalev has been an active and entertaining fighter, but he's running out of opponents who could give him a good match. Adonis Stevenson, the WBC champion, is perhaps one of them, and he rushed the ring to confront Kovalev after the bout.
Kovalev derisiely referred to Stevenson as "Chicken-son" and that led Stevenson to try to create havoc and at least pretend to try to get at the Russian born champion. Stevenson kept shouting "I'm the champ! I'm the real champ," as handlers got between them.
That fight won't happen because Stevenson is signed with Al Haymon and Kathy Duva, Kovalev's promoter, doesn't do business with him. She earlier pulled out of a WBC ordered purse bid because she knew she couldn't outbid Haymon.
Duva has also insisted that a Kovalev-Stevenson fight would have to be on HBO instead of on Haymon's Premier Boxing Champions. If it were on HBO, it would likely be a pay-per-view, though if PBC aired it, it would either be on network TV or on Showtime.
But the only big fight that seems even remotely likely for Kovalev is the one with Ward. The Russian did his part, using his thunderous power to totally dominate Pascal, who appears as if he's reached the end of the road.
Now, it's up to the business people to make it happen, though it's likely going to be later rather than sooner.
