Photo by Stephanie Trapp/Showtime
On Saturday, June 3, 2017, Eleider Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) scored a controversial majority decision victory against Jean Pascal (31-5-1, 18 KOs) to retain mandatory status for the WBC Light Heavyweight title at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The 12-round fight was the co-main event of a showdown featuring Adonis Stevenson, who holds the WBC strap, against Andrzej Fonfara in a rematch. Both fights were televised on Showtime in the U.S.
Alvarez is a 33-year-old native of Colombia who has been waiting for his shot at the WBC crown for about 2 years. Despite having a shot at the title, Alvarez risked his challenger status Pascal tonight.
For most of the fight, Alvarez controlled the fight with jabs, one-twos, and by staying active. Pascal, a 34-year-old Haitian-born resident of Canada, spent most of the fight waiting for Alvarez to make mistakes in order to capitalize upon them.
However, Alvarez made no such mistakes. Instead, he often threw his best shots in brief spurts during each round, which was usually not enough to either win the round or to throw Alvarez off his game plan.
Indeed, Alvarez continued controlling the fight going into the later rounds, though the scorecards were a bit off.
One judge scores the fight a 114-114 draw, though Pascal clearly didn’t even earn that much. However, the draw was overruled by one judge of 117-111 and one of 116-112.
With this victory, do you think he will finally take on Adonis Stevenson? Let us know in the comment section below.
