By David P. Greisman
Jean Pascal came to the Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday night needing to beat Roberto Bolonti in order to go on to challenge three-belt light heavyweight titleholder Sergey Kovalev in March 2015.
Pascal didn't win. He didn't lose either. But he'll likely still be facing Kovalev because of the way the Bolonti fight ended — with a late hit that dropped Bolonti hard and ended the bout as a no contest.
Pascal had scored a legitimate knockdown on Bolonti early in the second round, when a charging Bolonti ran into a counter left hand. Later, in the final minute of the round, the two boxers were tied up with Bolonti holding tight to both of Pascal's gloves. Pascal walked the pair of them to the ropes, and referee Michael Griffin put his arm on Pascal's left shoulder and worked to break the fighters apart.
Pascal freed his right hand and threw a short shot that hit Bolonti. It didn't appear to have enough behind it to hurt Bolonti, but Bolonti dropped down and remained down, his face on the canvas, his mouthpiece soon out. Ultimately Bolonti was taken from the ring on a stretcher.
Pascal, 32, of Laval, Quebec, remains 29-2-1 with 17 KOs. He'd lost the lineal light heavyweight championship to Bernard Hopkins back in 2011 and had seemed set to fight for it again against Adonis Stevenson. But when a deal couldn't be made, Pascal instead signed to face Kovalev, who is coming off a dominant win over Hopkins in November.
Bolonti, 35, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, remains 35-3 with 24 KOs. He was coming off a decision loss to Juergen Braehmer this past June.
- Super middleweight Schiller Hyppolite knocked Norbert Nemesapati down in the third round and later stopped him halfway through the 11th round. The 28-year-old Montreal resident originally from Haiti is now 14-1 with 10 KOs. The young Nemesapati, a 19-year-old from Hungary, is now 15-2 with 14 KOs.
- David Theroux won a six-round unanimous decision over Maurycy Gojko, taking the fight by scorecards of 60-52 from all three judges. Theroux, a 20-year-old from Quebec, moves to 5-0 with 3 KOs. Gojko, a 37-year-old from Poland, is now 22-45-3 with 8 KOs.
- Joel Diaz Jr. had in Pedro Navarrete an opponent who had lost 19 times before, but nearly all of those bouts had gone the distance. This fight didn't. Diaz landed a left hook to the body toward the end of the fourth round, putting Navarrete down in pain for the count. It was only the third time in 20 defeats that Navarrete failed to go the distance. Diaz, a 22-year-old junior lightweight prospect, is now 18-0 with 14 KOs. Navarrete, a 33-year-old from Mexico, is now 28-20-3 with 17 KOs.
- Opening up the pay-per-view broadcast, Junior middleweight prospect Steven Butler scored a fifth-round technical knockout over Lyes Chaibi. Butler, who is just 19 years old, moved to 9-0 with 8 KOs. Chaibi, 31, is now 12-8-2 with 2 KOs.