By Jean Pascal Promotions
Although Adonis Stevenson is the WBC light heavyweight champion, everybody knows that our position for a 50-50 revenue split is more than fair. Jean Pascal is clearly a much bigger box office star than Adonis Stevenson in the Quebec marketplace. This is not an opinion, this is a fact. And it is supported by several other indisputable facts such as;
1. Jean Pascal has taken part in 3 of the 5 highest grossing fights (including #1) in the history of Canadian boxing and Adonis Stevenson was not involved in the other two.
2. In those three fights, his two with Bernard Hopkins and his January 18 victory over Lucian Bute, Jean Pascal generated more revenue and ticket sales than Adonis Stevenson has in his combined career.
3. Yvon Michel publicly acknowledged that Jean Pascal is a more valuable commodity than Adonis Stevenson. If Jean Pascal can make $1M without a belt to fight Tavoris Cloud after the champion just knocked him out for $650,000 then Jean Pascal is worth significantly more money.
The fact of the matter is that with a victory over Jean Pascal, Adonis Stevenson would be able to sell more than 4,800 tickets in the Bell Centre, thus making himself a box-office attraction. This is the biggest money fight available to both Adonis Stevenson and Jean Pascal. There isn't another fight out there for Adonis that gives him the chance to become a 10,000 plus ticket seller in the province of Quebec. For Adonis this is a career high payday in a fight he would be favored to win and a victory would make a box office star, something he presently is not.
If a career high payday and the opportunity to become a box office star in a fight he'd be favored to win isn't enough for Adonis Stevenson to make a big fight, what exactly will it take? We were even willing to allow GYM back into another multi-fight deal with Jean Pascal Promotions.
The FACTS are that Adonis Stevenson, not Jean Pascal, is the one who blew the two biggest fights available to him. Now it's up to Stevenson to grow a pair and accept a major challenge or blatantly duck his third big fight in the last year or so. A champion who ducks three big fights in favor of bouts against second tier opponents is a champion nobody respects and is easily forgotten, especially at 36 years old.
Our willingness to give the old man a rematch clause is above and beyond our requirements as WBC mandatory challenger. At 36 years old Adonis Stevenson can assure himself at least two big paydays before he turns 40. At the end of the day, boxing is a business and Team Stevenson isn't using their best business sense. They have already lost millions of dollars with the Kovalev and Hopkins bouts and have the potential to lose millions more by choosing another second tier opponent over Jean Pascal.
Considering all of the facts, how does 50-50 not make sense to Team Stevenson? If Jean Pascal is as difficult to deal with as Yvon Michel would have the world believe, then clearly it is impossible to deal with Adonis Stevenson.
If Superman continues to run and hide behind his manager and promoter, Jean Pascal's new nickname will be Kryptonite. And everybody knows what would happen to Superman if he were in a boxing ring with Kryptonite.
THE NORTH AMERICAN PRESS HAS SPOKEN:
-When asked if a 50/50 revenue split was fair to make the Stevenson-Pascal fight happen, the press made their position crystal clear. With all of Team Stevenson's banter surrounding a ridiculous 70/30 split, here's a REALISTIC 70/30 split for them to digest.
Dan Rafael ESPN: Yes
Rejean Tremblay Journal De Montreal: No. 51/49 for Stevenson
Kevin Iole Yahoo Sports: Yes
Gabriel Beland La Presse: Yes
Rick Reeno Editor and Chief Boxingscene.com: Yes
Vincent Morin 98.5: Yes
Michael Woods TheSweetScience.com: Yes and Pascal might deserve more because he's been prominent longer
Jeremy Filosa 98.5: No. 55/45 for Stevenson
Mathieu Bedard RDS: Yes
Nancy Audet TVA: No. 60/40 for Stevenson
Martin Achard 12rounds.ca: Yes