By Ryan Burton
Over the past few months WBC #1 ranked contender Jean Pascal has hurled a series of insults at the organization's champion Adonis Stevenson who is also the Ring magazine champion. Pascal and his team had lobbied for a 50-50 purse split but Stevenson said that the WBC has already ruled that Pascal will receive 30% as the challenger. A tentative date of April 4th, 2015 has been set aside for the fight.
Stevenson must defeat Dmitry Sukhotsky on December 19th and Pascal must take care of Roberto Bolonti on December 6th for the fight to come to fruition. As long as Pascal agrees to a 70-30 split, Stevenson said that he has no problems fighting him.
"I don't have a problem facing him. Pascal is a contender. He can take 30%. He thinks he is a big star. He thinks that he can have more than that but the WBC said 30% so he can take 30%. He can get his 30% and get beat no problem. He is ranked #1 so it isn't a problem. He can't get anymore than that," said Stevenson.
As for the the battles on social media, Stevenson said that is just Pascal's way of trying to build up his name and popularity. He said that he may doing a lot of talking now but when they get in the ring it will be a different story.
"He is just talking trash. You know Pascal isn't popular and that he uses my name to build his name. That is why he does that," Stevenson told BoxingScene.com. "He even used my name to negotiate with Kovalev. He keeps calling my name to promote myself. He uses Twitter, Facebook and Instragram."
"He hasn't fought one top ten contender (in the light heavyweight division) since Bernard Hopkins at 175 and now he gets a gift to be ranked #1. That was a gift. He didn't fight for the #1 position. He was given a gift and now he is calling my name to make him more popular in the world because he knows that everyone wants Kovalev against Adonis. It is funny. He is just talking trash. The time is coming where he will have to see me in the ring and he won't be doing the same thing."
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