20.06.09 – by James Slater – Last night in Montreal, Canada, former WBC super-middleweight title challenger Jean Pascal won an entertaining and hard-fought 12-round unanimous decision victory over the previously unbeaten Adrian Diaconu to annex the 175-pound WBC crown – emerging the victor by scores of 116-111, 116-112 and 115-112. With the win, the Haitian-born 26-year-old improved to 23-1(15). In losing his world title on the first attempt at defending it, Romanian-born Diaconu fell to 26-1(15).
Six months on from his thrilling points loss to WBC 168-pound king Carl “The Cobra” Froch, Pascal proved he is very much world class while also proving he belongs at 175-pounds. Using his fast hands and fine boxing skills at times, and standing and trading with 31-year-old Diaconu at others, Pascal fought another great fight. And this time he clearly did enough to win.
“The Shark” tried his best to make it his kind of fight, but due to being slower than his challenger, the champion soon fell behind on the cards. Things got worse for Diaconu in the 5th round, as a left hand from Pascal decked him. However, the champion got up and came roaring back at his rival in the same exciting round, much to the delight of the 13,000-plus crowd that was in attendance.
Going into the second half of the highly watchable fight, the defending champion, realising he was more than likely losing on points, stepped things up as best he could. A very strong fighter, Diaconu was not going to give up his title in any way easily. Winning his share of the rounds in the bout’s final half, the champion also had to take some more hard shots himself – being hurt noticeably in the 8th round.
Round 11 was a good one for Diaconu, as he stunned Pascal a couple of times at least. But the 12th and final round was definitely a round won by the challenger. Both man had given their all at the end of the 12 rounds of action, and the fans in attendance cheered both fighters. Diaconu’s face was badly marked up after the bruising encounter.
Pascal, in winning the WBC title in what was just his second fight up at light-heavyweight, showed real talent and bravery. Back-to-back losses to Froch and Diaconu would possibly have ended or at least severely delayed any further attempts at becoming a world champion. Coming straight back after the December 2008 loss to Froch without having a tune-up at light-heavyweight first was seen as a bad idea by some. Pascal knew better.
Also something of a winner last night, even though he never threw a punch, was Froch himself. Now the fans can truly appreciate how good a fighter it was he defeated at the tail end of last year. Who knows, maybe one day Froch and Pascal will meet again?