Jean Pascal is indestructible. Now he will play an important fight for the position of mandatory contender for the IBF title of Artur Beterbiev on February 9 in Laval.
The devil of a man is 40 years old.
It will be a co-promotion of Lou DiBella, Groupe Yvon Michel and Jean-Pascal Promotions. And the man to beat will be Germany’s Michael Eifert. An undefeated 25-year-old boxer who will learn all the tricks of the trade in less than 12 rounds of boxing.
Jean Pascal, unless he gets arrested by the Laval police on his way to combat, will pass him in the With.
“You shouldn’t make jokes about what happened in Montreal. People who know me know how serious I am during training camp. This fight against Eifert was supposed to be presented in January, but was pushed back to February. But I’m already in training camp. Besides, after the press conference on Tuesday or Wednesday, I’m going to fly to Florida to fine-tune the work with Orlando Cuellar in Miami”, explains Pascal.
“Besides, some might accuse me of wanting to get free publicity before my fight with all the headlines surrounding ‘the deal’. Talk about it good or talk about it badly, it’s publicity. But in the end, the real truth will come out,” says Pascal half-fig half-grape.
But as he and his lawyer are studying how we will file a lawsuit against the police or the City of Montreal, he does not want to comment further.
A LITANY OF GREAT BOXERS
Life is never quiet with Jean Pascal. In his last fight, he volleyed Fanlong Meng, the number 1 contender in the IBF. Meng was undefeated.
In fact, the litany of undefeated boxers that Jean Pascal has faced is endless. Or almost.
It goes back to Sergey Kovalev who was 26-0 when he beat Pascal. Then, in Las Vegas, Yunieski Gonzalez was 16-0 when he was beaten by Pascal. Eleider Alvarez was 22-0. Ahmed Elbiali was 16-0. Dimitri Bivol, 14-0. Marcus Browne was 22-0 and Meng had a pristine 17-0 record. Previously, Pascal had beaten Chad Dawson who was considered the best pound for pound in the world with a 29-0 record. And just before that, Adrian Diaconu who was 26-0 and was world champion when Pascal first faced him.
It’s real madness. And one is missing, launches Pascal with a smile. That’s right, Steve Bossé had a stellar record of 1-0 in the ring and 894-0 on the ice.
And to conclude the story, in his debut at Club Soda, Jean Pascal had defeated Justin Hahn who had a record of 1-0. Incredibly, the great international referee Michael Griffin was the referee of this fight.
REVIVING YOUR SPORT
Jean Pascal has been traveling the world for years to fight against champions. It will be his return “before his people” to use his expression.
“For me, it’s very important to come back home, in front of mine. Boxing is going through difficult days and I want to help revive it as it deserves. I want to show that we can still do great things in Quebec in our sport. Apart from Steve Bossé, I’ve been fighting away from my family for years, ”says Pascal.
He is right. We were about ten Quebecers in Miami, including Jean-Charles Lajoie and his friends Bob Hartley and Michel Therrien, when he demolished the great hope of PBC Ahmed Elbiali and if my memories are correct, we were three journalists, on December 29, when he defended his belt against Badou Jack in Atlanta.
They were two in Tampa for Fanlong Meng… That’s not a lot of encouragement.
Laurent Poulin, Manny Montreal and the others
The CH fan can find the site In the wings which is quite professional and worth a look. The fefans have many other sites on the Canadian which are mainly aimed at selling clicks to advertisers. At the cost of any madness.
But boxing fans are privileged. A few enthusiasts work hard to produce super interesting sites. These great boxing lovers cover the local scene as well as the big fights in Europe, Asia or the Americas.
My favorite is Boxingtown by Laurent Poulin. It’s a one man show that a professional journalist must frequent regularly. Manny Montreal also does a good job.
Renald Boisvert
Boxing lost a great connoisseur and a formidable teacher when Martin Achard died a few months ago. But the site 12 rounds.ca which he had helped found continues as a form of tribute. This is where you can read the very sharp analyzes of Rénald Boisvert, Steven Butler’s coach. Boisvert is a former lawyer who has Leo McDonald in the nose.
I also like to read Richard L’Écuyer’s comments even if he has too negative a prejudice towards Eye of The Tiger Management. But in jazz, few professional columnists can show him. And when he talks about tenor saxophone, he’s on his own.
On the radio
Otherwise, we can fall back on Jeff Jeffrey on Tuesdays at 6:15 a.m. at 91.9. He is passionate about the history of boxing and is a good storyteller.
Unfortunately for other clinch sports, Huguette Proulx has disappeared from the airwaves…