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Cloutier’s Canada Corner
Freddie Roach: "I Am The One
Who
Ordered Mike Griffin To Stop The Fight"
By: Daniel Cloutier
MONTRÉAL — One hour after the Jean Pascal's painful and
humiliating lost against the Russian Sergey Kovalev,
Saturday evening at Bell Centre in Montréal, the Californian
trainer Freddie Roach said he was the one who asked to the
referee Mike Griffin to stop the fight after the seventh
round. “Jean did not want to surrender, I did, said Roach to
the media at the press centre, about a hour after the fight.
It’s absolutely true. After the sixth round, I mentioned to
Pascal I wanted to throw the towel. He asked to not do it.
He said: «give me another chance». But in the seventh round,
it’s was not functioning at all for Jean, he was suffering a
lot like he was in the fifth and sixth rounds, then I called
Griffin to tell him to stop the bout. He did.”
In this way, Pascal lost the bout by TKO at the end of the
seventh round. It was the second time in a span of 10 months
that Pascal was losing by TKO against the WBA, WBO and IBF
light heavyweight champion of the world. March 14th, also at
Bell Centre, Kovalev (29-0-1) beat Pascal (30-4-10 by TKO in
the eighth round.
Few days before this rematch, Kovalev promised to his fans
to beat Pascal faster this time… and he did it. He promised
to attack and punish more Pascal in this rematch, and he
did.
After few seconds in the bout, it was obvious that Kovalev
was extremely confident, Pascal clearly hesitant. In the
fifth, sixth and seventh rounds Saturday evening, Kovalev
was punishing severely a Jean Pascal almost inactive
offensively. It was a demolition work. A Jean Pascal who was
suffering terribly, was just trying to survive in the last
three rounds. In these rounds, Pascal connected a total of…
9 or 10 punches, against 96 or 97 for Kovalev.
Kovalev gave a great boxing lesson to Pascal, dominating the
bout technically and physically from the beginning to the
end. “I wanted so much to dominate Pascal more I did March
14th, and I did it, said Kovalev Saturday when he got of the
ring. I was the aggressor in every round. Pascal caught me
with a couple of good hooks in the bout, but you saw it, I
was controlling the action in every rounds. All my punches
were solid and accurate, my jab, my left hook and my right
hand. No doubt I was better in this rematch than I was March
14th. And it’s exactly what I promised to do. For sure, if
Pascal wanted to motivate me to kick his butt, he did the
right thing in insulting me publicly, in accusing me
unfairly to be a racist man…”
Pascal was not in the mood to talk when he meet the
journalists in the press room. He was crying. “ Please, give
to Jean a moment to live my painful emotions», said Pierre
Duc, the vice-president of the InterBox Group. Pascal
refuses to mention if he was thinking to ended his boxing
career.
A smiling Sergey Kovalev talked about his future after the
bout. “Andre Ward mentioned he was interested to face me,
and I am too, but I really believe my next bout will be an
unification of the four world championships belts, said
Kovalev. Adonis Stevenson has the only belt I don’t have,
the WBC one, I really hope to face him in 2016 to become the
only world champion of the light heavyweight division (175
pounds).”
Stevenson, a Montrealer southpaw, has a record of 27-1-0.
Kovalev and Stevenson are probably the two most dangerous
punchers of the light heavyweight division.
Kathy Duva, the president of Main Event, the Kovalev’s
promoter, said she is very interested to organize a fight
Kovalev-Stevenson for June. She started serious discussions
about it, with the Stevenson’s promoter, Yvon Michel, the
big boss of the GYM Group in Montréal. Obviously, Duva and
Michel will have to find a solution about the network which
televise this important bout. Kovalev has a contract with
HBO, and Stevenson is associated to Showtime.
“I am pretty sure this great match up will become reality in
2016, said Bernard Barré, the scout of the GYM Group. Now
that the rematch Pascal-Kovalev is done, we will see how the
negotiations will go with Kathy Duva, Yvon Michel and Hal
Haymon (the Stevenson’s manager). No doubt in my mind, a
fight Kovalev-Stevenson would become one of the most
important event in the history of the Canadian pro boxing.
Never a fight involving four world championships belts has
been organized in our country. We will see.”
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