Anber: Pascal Deserves All the Respect in the World

by David P. Greisman

Any past criticism of Jean Pascal should go out the window following the way Pascal performed in defeat Saturday night against light heavyweight titleholder Sergey Kovalev, according to Russ Anber, the longtime trainer, cutman and boxing insider who serves as a member of Pascal’s team.

“ This f***ing guy comes to fight. This guy comes to fight, and that’s what he said he was going to do, and that’s exactly what he did,” Anber said at the post-fight press conference. “Don’t get on this guy’s case anymore because there’s nobody in recent memory, nobody in this place who’s done what this guy did tonight. Nobody.

“Against a murderer. This guy is a murderer,” Anber said, either intentionally referencing or unintentionally bringing to mind the death of Roman Simakov after a loss to Kovalev in late 2011. “And to do what Jean did, coming back from the brink of defeat where he could’ve been blown out early, to come back the way he did, you tell me someone else recently who did in a Quebec ring what this guy did tonight. This guy deserves all the respect in the world. This guy fought his ass off tonight.”

Pascal was stopped for the first time in his career, though he claims he could’ve gone on and that the referee ended things too soon. Nevertheless, the defeat dropped him to 29-3-1 with 17 KOs, with the other losses coming to Carl Froch in 2008 and Bernard Hopkins in 2011.

But if Anber is right, then the former light heavyweight champion may have reasserted himself as a player in the 175-pound division where the two top guys are Adonis Stevenson and Kovalev.

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com