By Luke Furman, photo by Robert Levesque
As reported last month, former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal officially ending his association with Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach, and he started a relationship with veteran Canadian trainer Stephan Larouche - who is best known for his work with Eric Lucas, Leonard Dorin and Lucian Bute.
Pascal (30-4-1, 17KOs) hired Roach last year after a lackluster showing against Yunieski Gonzalez. Pascal barely squeezed out a decision win over ten rounds at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
Pascal, with Roach in his corner, took a beating when he faced unified light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in January of this year in Montreal. He seemed to have very little in the fight and it was stopped after seven rounds of action.
Larouche is a very serious trainer and he's already spoken in detail with Pascal on what will be required of him if they begin a working relationship.
The two of them have now been training for three weeks.
Pascal was targeting a return for the fall, but Larouche believes that he needs more time to get himself fully prepared for a proper ring return.
"Right now it's just the beginning to have a consistency. I have always said that a boxer who has experience, in order to return, must become a gym guy. He is going through two sessions per day for some time, but this is only the beginning. I don't think that because we did work for three weeks that he's now back," Larouche told RDS.
Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.
