Battle-hardened WBA Regular champ Jean Pascal has offered four-weight champion Canelo Alvarez the opportunity to win another crown at 175lbs.
“If Canelo wants to make history once again, if he wants to claim a second [world] title in the division, I’m right here,” Pascal told Ray Flores on PBC’s Time Out show on YouTube. “I know for a fact his style and my style in the ring – that’s going to be fireworks.”
Mexican superstar Canelo stepped up to light-heavyweight to impressively halt WBO champion Sergey Kovalev (KO11) last November before opting to drop back down in weight in search of fresh challenges.
at light-heavyweight. Photo: Hogan Photos.
Canelo was seemingly on the verge of fighting gifted but erratic WBO super-middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders before the Coronavirus struck boxing and the world.
At 37, Pascal (35-6-1 and 1 NC, 20 KOs) is enjoying an ‘Indian Summer’ in his creditable career, scoring upset wins over the previously unbeaten Marcus Browne and two-weight world champion Badou Jack (for the WBA crown) in 2019.
Photo: Amanda Westcott, Showtime.
A former WBC champ at light-heavyweight who has mixed it with Kovalev, Bernard Hopkins, Chad Dawson, Lucian Bute and Dmitry Bivol amongst others, the gritty Canadian has stayed in or around top level for almost 12 years since pushing a young Carl Froch for the vacant WBC 168lbs crown in December 2008.
Whether Canelo (53-1-2, 36 KOs) can be tempted back up to 175lbs is open to question with clashes against Saunders and a trilogy fight with old rival Gennady Golovkin on the horizon. But Pascal seems keen to join a long queue of eager opponents, all hoping to cash in against boxing’s biggest draw outside the heavyweight division.
“Canelo right now is a top three, top four pound-for-pound fighter in the world. You know me, I love challenges,” said Pascal. “It will be a risk, a great challenge for me as well as a great risk for Canelo, but at the end of the day, we want to make history.
“When we leave Planet Earth, we want to be remembered. This is the best way to be remembered – to make history.”