by David P. Greisman
This was the third fight for Roy Jones as one of the trainers to Jean Pascal, and he was both proud of what Pascal did in his eighth-round technical knockout defeat against Sergey Kovalev on Saturday, and disappointed in how that conclusion came about.
“For me, it really showed the skills, the heart of a champion. Call him Little Holyfield because he has so much heart,” Jones said at the post-fight press conference, bestowing that compliment following a fight in which Pascal was hurt in the third round and battled back to give Kovalev trouble.
In the eighth, Pascal was hurt and referee Luis Pabon waved things off, something that Team Pascal felt shouldn’t have happened.
“You hate to see the referee not give him a chance to be who he is,” Jones said. “He’s going to put it all on the line. I just felt the referee didn’t give him a chance to continue on, because as soon as the referee stopped the fight he asked the referee, ‘What are you doing?’ so he’s not incoherent. He’s fine and able to go.”
Jones had been working on Pascal’s stamina in training, attempting to prevent a repeat of how Pascal has gassed out in the past as a fight went on.
“He was doing a lot of things great. The best things I liked about him was his composure and that he wasn’t rushing,” Jones said. “He was prepared to go the 12 rounds if he had to. He had enough in him that he could’ve picked up towards the end of the fight. That was the best thing about it. The only thing I didn’t really care for was I felt we gave up a few too many jabs early. We could’ve stopped that. He was probably trying to lure him [Kovalev] in, and it’s easy to get caught up in what you’re trying to do.”
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