03.08.07 – By Ron Hansen: Undefeated Super middleweight prospect Jean Pascal (18-0, 13 KOs) won an impressive 12-round decision over Kingsley Ikeke (23-3, 13 KOs) on Friday night at the Pierre Charbonneau Centre in Montreal, Canada. Pascal, 24, was defending his NABF super middleweight title, and had a relatively easy time of it against former middleweight title challenger Ikeke, winning essentially ever round of the fight. The final judges’ scores were 118-110, 117-111, and 115-113. Pascal made it immediately clear that he meant business in the first round, throwing every punch as if he were trying to take Ikeke’s head off.
With power reminiscent of a combination of Jeff Lacy and Edison Miranda, Pascal blasted Ikeke with left-right combinations in the opening rounds. Though Ikeke was landing a lot of punches of his own, they were mostly limited to jabs or weakly thrown punches that had little impact in slowing down Pascal’s impressive offensive attack.
In the fourth round, Pascal got a little over anxious while attacking Ikeke, and ran into a right hand that he didn’t see, making Pascal back off as he seemed to be slightly hurt by the punch. Ikeke, however, didn’t appear to notice and continued to throw mostly jabs. In the eighth round, Pascal landed a powerful flurry of punches, hurting Ikeke with several scorching left hooks which knocked him back against the ropes.
In the ninth round, Pascal again cornered the slender, 6’4” Ikeke against the ropes, where he shelled him for severely for thirty seconds, landing several picture perfect left hooks that snapped Ikeke’s head back violently each time. I thought for a second that he would either go down or the referee would step in and halt the fight. Thankfully, the referee didn’t step in and stop it prematurely, because Ikeke still was able to defend himself.
However, Pascal was unable to finish the job. In the 11th round, Pascal looked to have hurt his left hand after throwing a hard left hook. After that, he rarely used it for the remainder of the fight. In the 12th round, Pascal hurt his right hand after landing a shot to Ikeke’s head. From that moment on, Pascal spend the much of the round moving frequently around the ring, and rarely throwing punches. Ikeke, badly fatigued by this time, was in no position to take advantage of the situation, and did little during this time, except for throwing a number of harmless jabs.
Overall, it was a fine performance for Pascal, especially with his vast arsenal of power punches that he showed against Ikeke. However, Pascal needs to learn to keep his fist closed when he throws punches, since he loses much of his power when he throws punches with an open hand, something that turns what would be a devastating punch into a cupping punch.