That kind of leaves Pascal's original opponent, Donovan George, in no man's land. Let us rewind quickly to recap this series of events. Lucian Bute was originally scheduled to take on Roberto Bolonti on December 6th on Montreal. Jean Pascal was then a fairly late addition to this card where he was set to take on Donovan George. Being that Pascal is a pretty big name in Canada, and that he handedly upended Bute, it struck many as odd that he would then be on the undercard of someone he just easily beaten. But he was anyway, so whatever...
So last week Bute pulled out of the Bolonti fight due to a back injury he sustained. Then InterBox promoter, Jean Bedard, announced his change to the fight card which included putting Pascal-George into the main event. Yesterday, however, he announced another significant change to the card; he would now be putting Pascal and Bolonti together in the main event. There were stories that this happened because Donovan George was also pulling out of the card, which made way for Pascal-Bolonti, but George's promoter Bobby Hitz denies that happened at all.
"We highly dispute any reports that Donovan George pulled out of this fight. It's true that he just had twins, but we are still a go," Hitz said. "We were still negotiating the final details with InterBox. Since Bute pulled out of his fight, there's been a lot of confusion as to how to elevate this fight to the main event. A lot of people were muddying the waters on how to make this thing happen. We have flight arrangements and we are scheduled to arrive in Montreal on Nov. 30, and we intend on fulfilling that."
Now, however, they won't be 'fulfilling that' at all, as Bedard has said that negotiations with George has dragged on for too long.
"There comes a time when negotiations have to stop and you've got to move forward," Bedard said. "Pascal versus Bolonti was a scenario we'd already considered, and we think it's the right one. Plus, it's important for Jean Pascal to fight."
So this essentially amounts to one big clusterf*ck. One in which it seems that in this game of musical chairs, George was the last one standing when the music stopped. Bolonti, however, is still excited to have a gig.
"This time, I was lucky to have a good, long-term training camp," Bolonti said. "It would have been a shame not to have the opportunity to fight. Although his style is different than Bute's, Pascal is just as big of a challenge for me."
Being that Bolonti is the king of rematches (reference BoxRec if you like), we may well prove to get unwarranted sequels to this fight several times over.