Roy Jones: Pascal Must Conserve Energy Against Kovalev

by David P. Greisman

Roy Jones Jr. has been working with Jean Pascal on his stamina, something he thinks will be important when Pascal challenges unified light heavyweight titleholder Sergey Kovalev this Saturday at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

Jones, a former four-division titleholder who serves as Pascal’s co-trainer, is “just helping him pace himself so he doesn’t get so fatigued early,” he said in an ESPN.com chat session on Thursday morning.

The topic came up several times.

“He will box and move when he has to. He will also be doing other things,” Jones said at one point. “He only wants to box and move when necessary because he knows that he can’t run all night long. He will lose all of his energy. He needs to box and move in and out in spurts.”

“Pascal is a very hard worker but there are a few intangibles that I wanted to teach him so he can do things when he starts to tire and make some adjustments so that his opponent doesn’t realize he is tiring,” Jones said at another point. “I showed him some things to take his mind off of it.”

Jones feels Pascal was receptive to what was being taught.

“He tries so hard to do things that you give him,” he said. “It’s very rewarding when you see any guy try their hardest to do the things that you teach them.”

Jones says Pascal’s ability to take a punch will surprise Kovalev, whose power in both hands has helped him build a record of 26-0-1 with 23 KOs.

Pascal, meanwhile, is 29-2-1 with 17 KOs, and Jones believes his fighter’s own offensive attributes could pose trouble for Kovalev.

“His movement will definitely be a problem,” Jones said. “He has a different type of hand speed, so that will be a problem.”

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