By Jim Dower: Undefeated #1 WBC Eleider Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) kept his number 1 mandatory spot with the World Boxing Council at light heavyweight a 12 round majority decision win over Jean Pascal (31-5-1, 18 KOs) on Saturday night in the co-feature bout on the undercard of the Adonis Stevenson vs. Andrzej Fonfara fight card at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.

The judges scored the fight 114-114, 117-111 and 116-112. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 7 rounds to 5 for Alvarez. He won the fight, but he was helpless to keep Pascal from stealing rounds with his late flurries. It appeared to be a closer fight than two of the judges scored it.

The 33-year-old Alvarez was in command all the way through the fight with his power jabs and combinations. Pascal looked like a shot fighter throughout, as he wouldn’t let his hands go. Pascal had been recently knocked out twice by Sergey Kovalev, and he’d also had a controversial decision win over Yunieski Gonzalez. Those fights seemed to knock the confidence out of Pascal, because he wasn’t attacking Alvaez with abandon like he would have done had he not fought Gonzalez and Kovalev. The confidence that once was there with Pascal was totally gone tonight. He fought like an over-the-hill fighter from start to finish.

Pascal did a great of coming on strong in the last seconds of rounds 1, 3, 7, 8 and 10. Those were all rounds that could have gone to Pascal. He landed the better shots in the final seconds of those rounds than Alvarez did during the majority of the rounds. What Pascal showed is Alvarez gets the worst of it when he’s fighting someone that flurries on him with fast shots. That’s not good news for Alvarez, because he could soon by challenging Adonis Stevenson for his WBC 175 pound title unless he’s given a step aside payment so he can go around him. Stevenson should get it over with and fight Alvarez because he would have an excellent chance of beating him. Pascal had a chance of defeating Alvarez if he’d let his hands go instead of waiting for opportunities to counter him all night long. That was a mistake on Pascal’s part.

“It was a close fight, but I felt I won the fight,” said Pascal afterwards. “I have respect for the judge’s decision. Right now, I have to get with my team and decide what’s next for me. I want to have a rematch because it was a close fight. It’s not over until it’s over,” said Pascal.

“I knew it was going to be a hard fight. I was well prepared,” said Alvarez. “Because that’s what champions do. Champions fight champions,” said Alvarez when asked why he took a risky fight against Pascal.

Pascal was spending most of the rounds with his back against the ropes, looking for an opportunity to counter Alvarez. It was a bad approach for Pascal, as Alvarez knew what he was doing, so he was just jabbing him much of the time. That left Pascal with few opportunities to land his counter shots. Pascal was not comfortable at all in initiating the action on his own, as he needed Alvarez to lead off so he could throw his counter shots. Alvarez did give Pascal chances to throw his counter shots, but he spaced out his attacks enough to where Pascal couldn’t predict when he would attack him.

In the 9th round, Alvarez caught Pascal with 2 big uppercuts in the corner that appeared to hurt him. Alvarez was quickly tied up by Pascal. Later on in the round, Pascal landed some nice punches in finishing strong.

In round 10, Alvarez was having things his own way in landing his jab over and over again to the head of Pascal. In the last seconds of the round, Pascal hit Alvarez with a tremendous left hook to the head that stunned him. Pascal then unloaded 5 lightning fast shots that clearly bothered Alvarez, who was too slow to get out of the way of them.

The win for Alvarez puts him in the position to fight WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson next. That doesn’t mean the fight will happen next. There’s an outside chance that Stevenson can fight the winner of the Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward fight. I think it’s extremely doubtful that the winner of the Ward-Kovalev II fight will put any effort into fighting Stevenson, because the negotiations would likely be extremely lengthy and it still might not end up with a deal being.

Depending on how long the negotiations drag on, the Ward-Kovalev winner could wind up missing out on a title defense. We saw that happen with Gennady Golovkin when he got stuck in long negotiations for a fight against Danny Jacobs. Golovkin missed out on a fight in December. So instead of the fight being a big money one, it wasn’t quite as much as it would have made due to Golovkin missing a payday. Stevenson vs. Alvarez will likely be the fight that takes place next for Stevenson. It’ll be a tough fight for him, because Alvarez has a good jab, a solid chin, and he doesn’t make the kind of mistakes we saw Fonfara make tonight. The best thing of all, Alvarez wasn’t recently knocked out in the 1st round like Fonfara was by Joe Smith Jr.

Pascal had the hand speed advantage over Alvarez. He gave him problems each time he would throw a lot of punches. Alvarez was always too slow to do much of anything when Pascal threw his fast shots. The mistake Pascal made was he failed to throw enough punches during the fight. Pascal was always waiting and waiting and not throwing his shots.

The loss for Pascal was his third in his last five fights. Pascal was beaten twice by Kovalev. Pascal also was given a questionable win over Yunieski Gonzalez that could have been a loss. If you count that as a defeat, Pascal has now lost 4 out of his last 5 fights. I think it’s time that Pascal hangs up his boxing gloves and looks for another job.

Pascal said after the fight that he wants a rematch with Alvarez because he believes he should have won the fight. “It’s not over until it’s over,” said Pascal.

I beg to differ. I think it’s over for Pascal. He can fight Alvarez again if he wants to, but I don’t think Pascal has enough left in the tank to beat someone like him, even though there’s only 1 year that separates the two fighters. Alvarez is a young 33, and Pascal and old 34. Pascal might be able to beat someone like Lucian Bute or some of the bottom ranked contenders at 175, but that’s about it. I think Pascal’s boxing career is pretty much over whether he wants to admit it or not.