By James Blears
Jean Pascal has been formally presented with the famous green belt by World Boxing Council President Jose Sulaiman, at the Zona Rosa Offices of the WBC in downtown Mexico City.
Next week Jean goes to Miami for training camp, in advance of his defense against Bernard Hopkins on December 18th in Quebec. . Jean respects the 45 year evergreen veteran on the polite side of the ropes saying to BoxingScene.com: “Bernard is like a bottle of vintage wine. Look at the way he schooled Kelly Pavlik. He’s a teacher, but I’m a great student of boxing. Bernard seems to get better with age, but my job is to defeat him.”
The only blemish on Jean’s record was a unanimous decision loss to Carl Froch in Nottingham back in 2008. And Jean is keen to have another fight in the future. He explained: “The fight against Carl brought me a lot of experience. Because of that fight I’m a more complete boxer. If we fight again, I’m one hundred and ten percent sure that I’ll defeat Carl. He’s a great fighter and a great man, but this is my only loss, so we have to do it again. Carl is currently focused on Arthur Abraham and I’m concentrating on Bernard. But after Super Six has finished, why not?”
Jean’s boxing hero is Roy Jones. He said: “Roy is my idol. It’s because of him that I love boxing so very much. It would be crazy to fight Roy, and if my promoter asked me to do this, I would decline. But if Roy asked me, it would be a different thing.”
Jean says the WBC belt is going to take pride of place in his bedroom, and he plans to stay a WBC champion for a full ten years, before hanging up his gloves. He says he aims to achieve this by hard work, discipline and sheer dedication.
He also revealed he wants to win the Cruiserweight title and end his career as Heavyweight Champion: “Like my man Roy!”
