Boxing News Boxing News
14,000 boxing fans packed the Bell Centre in Montreal last night to witness what had been called the biggest fight in Canadian history as WBC light heavyweight champ Adrian Diaconu put his belt at risk against local crosstown rival Jean Pascal.
Challenger Pascal was coming up from super middle and it was unknown whether or not he’d be able to mix with a full fledged light heavy.
With a round it became clear that Pascal’s fight plan was to avoid just such close quarters combat as he employed his height, reach and quickness advantages to keep Diaconu at the end of the jab.
Unable to cut off the ring and corner the fleet-footed challenger, Diaconu ate a lot of leather from the quick shots of Pascal.
A frustrated champion let his defense drop in a wild fifth frame and was canvassed by a perfect left hook from Pascal. Diaconu beat the count and aside from a slip later, managed to battle back and shake Pascal for the first time in the bout.
A more wary Pascal resumed his stick and move tactics by the sixth and it wasn’t until the last two stanzas when the tired warriors finally began to swap punches but neither man could hurt the other in the exchanges.
Pascal, 23-1 (15), was declared the winner by unanimous decision, capturing the WBC title via scores of 116-112, 116-111 and 115-112 over Diaconu, 26-1 (15).
On the undercard, cruiserweight Troy Ross, 22-1 (15), outpointed granite-jawed opponent Michael Simms, 23-11-1 (13), over ten frames.
Super middle slugger David Lemieux, 16-0 (16), kept a spotless record by stopping Martin Avila, 9-6 (3), in the second while bantamweight Sebastien Gauthier, 17-2 (12), was upset via second round stoppage by Mario Macias, 15-3 (8).
