Jean Pascal loses again. This is his second defeat in his last four fights. It’s not the end of the world though the former WBC world light weight champion. He doesn’t need to retire from boxing. He can still be involved in the sport and get important fights from time to time.
Dmitry Bivol won a boring 12 round unanimous decision over Pascal on Saturday night at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City, New Jersey. The scores were 117-111, 119-109, and 119-109. The Russian retained his WBA world light heavyweight title.
Speaking after the fight, Pascal’s coach Stephan Larouche said why the 36-year-old should retire from boxing due to his age.
“Jean has just battled one of the best hopes at 175 pounds. We will take the time to analyse and watch all this. It’s not because you lose a fight against one of the best in the world that you are needed to finish.” Larouche said.
“Jean has demonstrated what characterises him: courage, resilience and a chin of steel. Of course, we may have felt that age was starting to take effect. We would have liked him to put pressure a little longer, but he was not able to.” Larouche added.
Pascal always offers an excellent show and because he is able to make believe that he has a legitimate chance to win even if it is not the case. The argument of experience had been used extensively before the first fight against Sergey Kovalev, against Eleider Alvarez and was hammered again in recent days.
Dmitry Bivol dominates Jean Pascal, retain WBA title. (Source:www.roundbyroundboxing.com)
Beaten for the third time in four fights, it was clear that the Quebecker boxer had nothing left to hope to rival with the tenors of the moment: Alvarez, Adonis Stevenson, Andere Ward and Kovalev.
“We must not forget that Alvarez is one of the best light heavyweights in the world. It really was not a question of willpower. The body did not follow anymore.” Larouche said.
“Jean and I knew that Alvarez would use his jab a lot and that the timer needed to counter it. But Jean did not have that quarter of a second that he already possessed to get there. His reaction time was much too long to counterattack effectively.” Larouche added.