Jean Pascal retained the WBC light heavyweight title with a decision win over rival Adrian Diaconu tonight at Montreal's Bell Centre.

The judges' scorecards were 118-110, 117-111 and 117-111, but it appears most observers had the fight closer than that, or at least indicate that the fight was more competitive than the wide scores may indicate. Pascal (25-1, 16 KO) won the title from Diaconu this past June in the same building.

Diaconu (26-2, 15 KO) may have been helped by what we hear was a clear shoulder injury to Pascal, who won the fight essentially using his left hand only.

Here's the AP take:

After fighting to a draw through four rounds, Pascal appeared to lock his right shoulder and aggravate an injury that has plagued him recently. The shoulder seemed to lock up again toward the end of the 10th round, and Pascal even appeared to ask referee Michael Griffin for time before he was saved by the bell.

In his corner between the 10th and 11th rounds, Pascal's trainer worked on the shoulder and it appeared to pop into place. He finished the 11th with another vicious combination, and his flashy style stood in contrast to the jabbing, plodding offense of Diaconu.

Keep in mind the AP doesn't editorialize much, of course.

Bad Left Hook commenter Varry Galk contributed this quick take:

I had it 115-113 but the judges scored it 118-110, 117-111, 117-111. Pascal was clearly bothered by a right shoulder injury but Diaconu still couldn’t avoid Pascal’s all-left jab-jab-hook combinations.

The biggest news out of this fight is that this now makes a fight between Pascal and Chad Dawson a mandatory situation with the WBC, who ordered the winner of this bout to face Dawson at their ridiculous meetings in South Korea.

What's funniest about that is Dawson's goofy history with the WBC. A quick timeline:

• Dawson beats Tomasz Adamek for the WBC light heavyweight title
• Diaconu is installed as mandatory challenger; Dawson-Diaconu never does come off thanks to injury to Diaconu, but Dawson defends the WBC title three times (Jesus Ruiz, Epi Mendoza, Glen Johnson)
• Dawson gives up the WBC title to fight Antonio Tarver for the IBF belt, but really, he gave it up to fight Tarver for more money, recognizing that the belts mean nothing
• Dawson defends the IBF belt against Tarver successfully, then stages a rematch with Johnson
• Dawson-Johnson II has the interim WBC title on the line; why they needed an interim titlist when Jean Pascal was busy, fighting their top contenders, and totally healthy is anyone's guess
• And here we are with Dawson-Pascal being ordered

If Dawson can get a bigger money fight, say against Bernard Hopkins, do you want to guess what he'll do with the WBC's interim title? And why doesn't Dawson need to publicly apologize to the WBC, as they want Shane Mosley to do before they'll allow him to fight for Andre Berto's WBC welterweight strap in January?

Seriously, five-year-olds can poke holes in the nonsense these people put out there.

Dan Rafael reports in this week's notebook at ESPN.com that two fights in December could be coming to American TV.

One was expected. The December 12 WBC heavyweight title fight between Vitali Klitschko and Kevin Johnson looks like it's headed to HBO, which will air it on same-day tape alongside the two fights live from Chicago the network has that night. Klitschko-Johnson, Juan Diaz-Paulie Malignaggi II and Victor Ortiz-Antonio Diaz is a pretty nice little triple-header, wouldn't you say?

It's no surprise because as has been reported and touted frequently, the September 26 fight between Klitschko and Cristobal Arreola did HBO's highest ratings of the year. They were no doubt helped by the Mayweather-Marquez replay leading them in, but they also retained those viewers, which is a big deal.

On December 11, Jean Pascal and Adrian Diaconu will rematch for the light heavyweight title that Pascal won from Diaconu this summer. It was a hell of a good fight, picked up by the Versus Network, who are likely spending any budget they have left on their Hopkins-Ornelas and Green-Jones double-header on December 2.

Instead of Versus getting the rematch or one of the two tapped major networks grabbing it, ESPN looks like they're going to step in and air the bout on ESPN Classic and ESPN360.com. ESPN has nabbed a few fights for Classic in the recent past, including Vitali Klitschko-Juan Carlos Gomez, Wladimir Klitschko-Ruslan Chagaev and O'Neil Bell-Tomasz Adamek. Hopefully this trend keeps up. There are a lot of good fights out there that won't cost the network an arm and a leg to gain U.S. rights for, and there are plenty of boxing fans that will tune in.

With TV spots for boxing so few and far between as most of the American fights are on HBO and Showtime, with ESPN2 chipping in Friday Night Fights for part of the year and Versus picking up the occasional fight, boxing promoters are often left with the unenviable task of trying to sell budget-style pay-per-views to the hardcore boxing audience. Top Rank's Latin Fury series goes for a closer-to-standard PPV price tag of $39.99, but there is a small slew of shows coming up that will be in the $25-30 range most likely.

I also don't think it's any great travesty that these shows -- or the Latin Fury events -- are on pay-per-view. Frankly, I prefer to live in a world where if I feel like it, I can plunk down some cash and watch a "minor" show. If you don't want to order it, you don't order it, and nothing is hurt, least of which is boxing should nobody buy any of these fights.

Here's the minor PPV lineup in the coming months.

October 24: Kermit Cintron v. Juliano Ramos

This is without question the worst of the bunch, and will only be available on Dish Network, I believe. Cintron (31-2-1, 27 KO) faces Brazilian Ramos (15-2-1, 12 KO) in Puerto Rico, Kermit's first-ever fight on the island. This was meant to be teamed with a Carlos Quintana stay-busy fight, an attempt to poke at the Puerto Rican fanbase's wallets, but with just Cintron being too well-known at all, promoter Lou DiBella is probably going to take a small bath on this one. Cintron-Ramos is a nasty mismatch considering Cintron's power and the fact that Ramos was stopped by Mike Jones in his last fight.

October 30: Hector Camacho Jr. v. Yori Boy Campas

Let me tell you something. I watch a lot of boxing. I pay out the backside for HBO, Showtime and PPV events. But this disgrace of a fight isn't even worth stealing online, that is if anyone in the world is going to pay for it and then stream it. Camacho (49-3-1, 27 KO) is the owner of one of boxing's emptiest records and has survived 13 years in the pro game on his father's name, while the 38-year old Campas (92-14-1, 74 KO) is just plain shot and nowhere near the competitive fighter he once was. This will be marketed as "revenge" crap because Campas drew Camacho's 47-year old father at a DoubleTree Hotel in Orlando back in May in front of about 12 people. If you order this, you're nuts.

November 6: Zab Judah / Joel Casamayor Doubleheader

Yeah, this one got PPV. Judah was going to fight Matthew Hatton in July before Mayweather-Marquez was postponed, and then was lined up for the same fight in September before backing out. He was then offered a fight with Shane Mosley and turned it down. He set up a bout for this show with highly-regarded sparring veteran Ramon Montano, who once gave David Diaz a fairly tough 10 rounds at lightweight, but Montano is out. Judah will -- for now -- face blown-up Brazilian featherweight Adailton DeJesus (22-4, 17 KO), who has fought once this year at 135 pounds. It'll be a welterweight contest.

Joel Casamayor will also return on the card, facing Jason Davis (11-4-1, 3 KO). Sounds like a party, doesn't it?

November 7: Nikolai Valuev v. David Haye

Hey, alright! One to actually be excited about, at least sort of. This fight certainly deserved the Integrated Sports PPV treatment, and it will receive it. With Cristobal Arreola having been pretty harshly smoked by Vitali Klitschko in September, it's now up to cocky Brit David Haye to crash the heavyweight party and provide excitement, at least in theory. This fight will have the intrigue that all Valuev fights do, as he's seven feet tall and will tower over Haye. As positive as most seem that Haye will win this fight, he's had a dodgy chin in the past and Valuev is just massive. I can't see Haye knocking Valuev out, but if he rips away to the body he could possibly get the giant to give up. This is a more interesting prospect than Valuev's last PPV fight, last December against Evander Holyfield.

December 11: Winky Wright v. Grady Brewer

Wright's planned Puerto Rico comeback is a go, with Grady Brewer being named as his opponent. Brewer, a 38-year old former "Contender" winner, is an ugly fighter in terms of style, and so is Winky. All recommendation to avoid what should be a seriously action-less snoozefest, and potentially a downright stink bomb.

If you're wondering where you can catch the promising Jean Pascal-Adrian Diaconu rematch on December 11, that fight will be handled by GoFightLive.TV, probably for $9.99 as a webcast.

Anyone planning to order any of these shows? I'm going to buy Valuev-Haye and might convince myself to buy Wright-Brewer, but I'm not touching the other three.

Jean Pascal took the WBC light heavyweight title from Adrian Diaconu on June 19 in Montreal, and now the two will head back to the Bell Centre for a rematch on December 11.

Pascal (24-1, 16 KO) has fought once since his win over Diaconu, a 10th round stoppage of veteran Silvio Branco. Diaconu (26-1, 15 KO) has been inactive since his first career defeat, waiting on the rematch. The first fight was really good, and televised in the U.S. by Versus. But with Versus' issues right now and the fact that they look like they're just out of boxing, don't expect that a second time. Hopefully someone in the U.S. will step up and grab this fight. Showtime has a history of nabbing fights like this, but their budget is probably done for the rest of 2009 with the Super Six, Bradley-Peterson and Agbeko-Perez all coming up. ESPN has picked up a few meaningful fights in the last couple years (Wladimir-Chagaev, Vitali-Gomez, Bell-Adamek), and hopefully this could fit in there. Anywhere, really. Even if this has to go to small PPV with Integrated Sports, I think I'd be willing to pay $25 or so for this, and do so fairly happily.

That last option can also be sweetened if the rumored Kendall Holt-Herman Ngoudjo fight is added to this show's undercard. The two junior welterweight contenders have been in talks to meet in an eliminator bout, and it would be a perfect co-feature for this main event.

The press release for the Pascal-Diaconu rematch also noted that Pascal will be in Nottingham this weekend to cheer on his former foe, Carl Froch. It was the Froch-Pascal war from last December that truly put both on the map for a lot of people, so nice to see how much respect they have for one another after a great fight that raised the stock on both of them.