So his power is overrated because he didn't stop Woods? I'd say he hits hard enough to hurt Pascal. It's not like he has a granite chin or anything, I've seen him hurt and wobbled by a journeyman at 168. Diaconu's power was overrated as well and he hurt Pascal too. Cloud is also faster and throws better combinations than Diaconu.
Cloud couldn't even knock out a shot Julio Gonzalez. There were reports of Gonzalez having problems in sparring against Librando Andrade, that's how bad his physicals skills were. And Cloud didn't knock out Gonzalez, it was stopped because Gonzalez was taking too much punishment. Cloud is one of the top hitters in LHW but he won't be knocking out opponents if he lands 15 punches as some people expect to do. Also Cloud fights in a straight line, a boxer with good footwork and angles would give Cloud all sorts of problems, and that's what Pascal does.
He was the only person to stop Gonzalez, who has an iron chin and faced some of the best around at 175. So what if he didn't actually knock him down. He battered him in that fight, staggered him, stunned him, he beat the **** out of him. Same with Woods, another iron chinned fighter who has been in there with the best. Name me someone at 175 right now that stops both of those guys....
Going by their last victories I would rate Pascal higher than Cloud but I'm not so sure how a head to head matchup would go.
Gonzalez looked dead in that fight, before that he lost to ancient Reggie Johnson, that's how shot he was.
I can see Pascal giving Cloud all sorts of angles thus making making Cloud constantly miss. Pascal moving in and out, landing punches on Cloud at will.
I would actually disagree Diaconu is probably faster and puts his punches together just as well if not better then Cloud. He's a two time world amateur champion and I'd pick him over Cloud at this point in Clouds career. Cloud's power is better then diaconu's though. He has the power to hurt pascal and he's obviously has the mental make up of a good fighter but he's nothing special.
I see it as a UD or a TKO for Pascal. But interms of what it would look like I think the biggest determining factor would be how well Cloud's chin could stand up against PAscal's shots. Because he is strong enough to hurt pascal and pascal is there to be hit. So if his chin holds up well enough to allow him to accumulate more and more opportunities to hurt pascal he could probably hurt pascal a few times while losing a wide UD. He'd also have an outside shot of getting the knockout. If his chin doesn't hold up at least as well as diaconu's did (and I think this is the more likely senario) he'd probably be unable to put pascal in any danger and would likely get knocked out in the mid to late rounds.
Diaconu-Cloud is actually a fight I'd love to see. I think it'd be a more competitive fight, and probably the more exciting one right now.
Pascal beat Diaconu a real LIVE fighter, Cloud beat washed up light-heavyweights who were punching bags.