I hate seeing fights where you know the other guy will have no opportunity to defend himself. Boxing was never supposed to be a glorified violence fest. Rather a fight between two evenly matched opponents. Pascal is just going to get pummeled and won't be able to stop it.
I like Pascal but this is just not rightatsch I guess after this we can look forward to Bhop asking for a rematch:roll::verysad
That's because nobody wants to get into the ring with Kovalev. Look at the division...do you see anyone wanting to challenge him for the belts? Gonzalez and Beterbiev turned down fights.
It's not farcical at least.... Considering the fight with Stevenson isn't going to be made anytime soon, Beterbiev and Gonzalez not taking the fight, there really aren't that many options. Chilemba/Alvarez winner is going to be an interesting fight though.
It's a fine fight for HBO and Main Events, who aren't interested in making the best possible fights (contra their rhetoric), but are interested in making the the best fights in which they get to control everything.
What about Adonis Stevenson? I believe he is the lineal champion and for some reason Kovalev's promoter walked away from 2 separate purse bids to take him on.
You know the reason full well. It sucks but it is what it is; Duva wanted the HBO contract and HBO wouldn't do business with Haymon. Course, one of the consequences is that Kovalev really doesn't have any Names to fight at 175 outside of Pascal (this is the reason for Ward being 'dragged' up too, of course - 168 is Haymons now - specially wrt US based fighters). There's a number of good up n comers Kovalev could fight at 175 (Gonzalez being ofc the front runner), but no-one who would either further his career or bring in the $s.
Wow sounds like what HBO and Duva are doing is the same as what Haymon did to Quillin-Korobov. Don't recall the backlash being equivalent though for either the fighter or the promoter/network. It's particularly funny since Duva, Lampley, et. al. spent a year talking about "the good of the sport."
Not really a dumb fight, but one in wich the winner is almost a certainty. Only question is, will Pascal go into survival mode this time once he gets hurt and make it a dull fight? I know that's against his religion, but he already took that beating once, and he might change his gameplan when he gets a dejavu.
Not quite the same, obviously, since Quillin dropped his strap rather than fight his mando, whereas Duva maneuvered Kovalev into the mando slot then opted not to take it, but yeah, like I said, still sucks. And meh... you worried about double standards? Yeah, it's a boxing forum... I'd learn to get over it.
This fight probably finishes the job of knocking Pascal to fringe contender/high level gatekeeper level. It's been a good run for him, but the punishment he's taken in the course of his career is going to exact its toll in and after this fight.