Roach: Pascal Said Kovalev's Power Was Overwhelming

By Luke Furman

Last Saturday night at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Jean Pascal took a beating and was eventually stopped in the seventh round of his rematch with WBO/WBA/IBF light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev.

It was Pascal's first bout with new trainer Freddie Roach. He hired Roach late last year after dropping longtime trainer Marc Ramsey.

Pascal was far more competitive when the boxers met the first time around last March. In that fight Pascal was stopped in the eight round.

In the rematch, Roach says power was the difference. Pascal told him that Kovalev's power was too much to deal with.

"It wasn’t our best night that’s for sure – our first night together – we trained really hard for this fight,” Roach said.

“Warming up in the dressing room, he looked really sharp and everything was going really well. When we went out there he felt the power of his opponent he told me the power was overwhelming. [Kovalev’s] a very strong fighter, there are no excuses, we trained hard."

Pascal is planning to fight on and Roach is planning to continue training him. There was some calls for Pascal to retire. He didn't seem well organized in the ring and he wasn't reacting well to punches.

"I think Jean does still have a future, maybe not with Kovalev. I look forward to working with him again because he’s a great guy, he’s a friend now. We had a great training camp but it just wasn’t enough,” Roach said.

Pascal's co-promoter, InterBox, are also backing their fighter. They plan to stand in his corner and promote any upcoming fights, according to company vice president Pierre Duc.

“Interbox is very proud of Jean Pascal," Duc said. "It takes a lot of guts and courage to face that guy twice in a row like this. Obviously not the end result that we wanted to see. It doesn’t take anything away from Jean. So we’re supporting this guy a lot.”

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.