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Jean Pascal outpointed Adrian Diaconu in a 12-round war tonight in Montreal, taking both Diaconu's WBC light heavyweight title and his unbeaten record via unanimous decision. Pascal won on scores of 115-112, 116-112 and 116-111. Bad Left Hook scored it 116-111 for Pascal.
Pascal (23-1, 15 KO) is now a major titleholder for the first time, and his last two fights have to have silenced some critics. Pascal has always been a talented athlete, but his knocks were that he made too many stupid mistakes, and he never had a reputation for toughness. After his gritty loss to Carl Froch in December and now this rough and tumble win, which he earned every point of, Pascal should be seen as a legit titlist and a genuinely tough guy. He took some good shots against both Froch and Diaconu, and while Froch beat him, he made Diaconu look slow for the vast majority of the fight, ducking in and out with great shots, and knocking "The Shark" down in the fifth round.
Diaconu (26-1, 15 KO) is back to the drawing board in many ways, though a rematch may not be totally out of the question. Interbox (Diaconu's promoter) now has an option on Pascal, which could mean a rematch or a fight back at 168 pounds with Lucian Bute, should Bute fail to make a fight with Carl Froch.
If you missed it, I recommend catching one of the Versus Network's upcoming 732 replays of this fight over the next year. They still replay Toney-Oquendo and it wasn't that long ago they quit showing Solis-Grigsby II, so this good fight will be around a while.
On the undercard, Troy Ross predictably and routinely outpointed Michael Simms.
In other news:
- Justice has prevailed and Vitali Klitschko won his dispute with the WBC, meaning he won't be forced to fight Oleg Maskaev next or give up his belt. There have been talks of him fighting either Chris Arreola or David Haye next, and Dan Rafael today mentioned a potential unification bout with Nikolai Valuev, which is something I want to see about as bad as I want to see Valuev-Holyfield II.
- Speaking of the WBA title, it's now definitely not on the line in tomorrow's Wladimir Klitschko-Ruslan Chagaev bout. For the time being -- as they "conduct an investigation" on the cancelled Valuev-Chagaev rematch -- Chagaev keeps his "champion in recess" designation, and will leave Germany with his title tomorrow no matter what. That's sharp. Just sharp.