I also think it's gonna be a few money fights (although interesting ones) before he either retires or moves up if he still has it in him at this point (he said he had difficulty making 175).
You guys are obviously a bunch of statisticians. A fighter with a very solid if not granite chin who has fought in wars with big punchers, eg Froch and your prediction is he gets koed early? This rarely happens. Don't expect it to happen with Kovalev just because you have fallen in love with his power. There are worse boxers who have already survived 12 rounds with Sergey, meaning Pascal has a decent chance of also doing so.
It was a lousy main event. Bute was afraid he would embarrass himself so consequently he never engaged, the whole fight. Who cares about the 12th round? That was strictly a ploy to get some easy money in a rematch. Neither fighter looked good. Kovalev would KO either of these fighters. There are timelines in every career. Pascal and Bute are toward the end of theirs. Kovalev is in the middle of his. So, even though Pascal has not been KO'd before there is a very good chance Kovalev KO's him if they meet. Bute isn't even worth considering. He is a shot fighter who has no confidence since the beating he took from Froch. The only interesting thing about last night was Takam exposing Perez. Perez showed he would get easily KO'd by either Klitschko. I would love to see Arreola fight Perez or Takam. That would be fun.
To me, it looked like there was a gentlemen's agreement between the two last night to try and make the fight look interesting enough for a rematch, but not so much that either guy gets actually hurt. I mentioned that before the post fight interviews, and I was a little surprised Pascal basically admitted to it in his. It looked like both guys were in on it, and that both of them brought up the rematch tells me they're not really being that sly about it.
Since Pascal and Stevenson are friends and don't want to fight each other, HBO should push for a Pascal-Kovalev fight to be made next.
I agree. That makes the most sense, if Pascal won't fight Stevenson. Then the winner can fight Stevenson. I would actually love to see Pascal fight Stevenson before the winner meets Kovalev because that would bring greater clarification and potential hype to Stevenson. More money for the eventual Stevenson/Kovalev showdown. The big payday is going to be Stevenson vs. Kovalev.
pascal looked very average in the bute fight... slow, fatigued, unable to hurt his opponent... My boy Kovalev by KO