By James Slater: As fight fans have probably already heard by now, the intriguing August 11th light-heavyweight fight between IBF champ Tavoris Cloud and former world champ Jean Pascal is now off, due to a hand injury on the part of Pascal.
Fears grew when the official press conference was cancelled yesterday, and soon after the fears were confirmed: there will be no fight until October at the earliest.
Yvon Michel, Pascal’s promoter told Ringtv.com that his fighter hurt his right hand in sparring.
“It’s confirmed. In sparring, he injured his right hand,” Michel said. “It’s a minor bone contusion. I don’t have the exact medical word. He tried to fight through it. He had some cortisone shots, and there was a hope it was going to heal this week.
“But on Tuesday, he had another MRI and the doctor said that it’s impossible.”
The fight will be rescheduled, hopefully for October, but Michel told Ring that Showtime say October is “a challenge.” Fans were looking forward to this one, an almost guaranteed thriller, and the sooner the fight can be re-set, the better.
However, Cloud and his trainer/manager Al Bonanni are unconvinced about the legitimacy of Pascal’s hand injury. Cloud has out and out accused Pascal of “using politics” in an attempt to “try to manoeuvre himself out of an ass whipping.” While Bonanni, speaking to ESPN.com, said:
“I think he has known for some time that he was not fit to fight for whatever reason. He hasn’t fought for [more than a year]. We would have just destroyed him. We would have gone thorough him like **** through a goose. It’s just typical in the life of Tavoris Cloud. We’re always ready and then something comes up.”
Both Cloud and Bonanni said they will wait for Pascal and that the fight will happen when it happens. But Cloud has been unlucky before, as Bonanni said. Kept on the shelf for long periods (Cloud says due to the top names not wanting any part of him), the unbeaten Floridian has a right to feel frustrated. Is there any truth to Cloud’s claims that Pascal’s injury is far from legit? We will have no way of knowing.
But fans are in for a pretty uneventful summer as far as boxing goes, with no really big fights scheduled for the summer months. Pascal-Cloud would have been a highlight in August, as would Gennady Golovkin-Dmitry Pirog, also unfortunately postponed.
The only remaining August fight that could be called big, is the Aug 25th. Robert Stieglitz-Arthur Abraham clash. Let’s hope that one goes ahead as planned!