Pascal Throws Bombs Before Saturday Night
Photo by Vincent Ethier/Interbox
From the very first press conference to announce their rematch, Jean Pascal turned things up when he called Sergey Kovalev a racist. Trash talking isn’t anything new in the boxing world, but Pascal made it a point to state this rematch was very personal.
“It’s personal because I’m fighting someone who is ignorant, non-educated, and a racist. Someone who has no respect for my people or even my fans,” stated Pascal back in November.
Yesterday, for the final press conference before fight night, Pascal took everything to a whole new level. Pascal brought a handful of banana’s to the podium to hand out and eat, even handing one to Kovalev’s trainer John David Jackson, Pascal continued on his rant of Kovalev having no respect for black people. Pascal made some pretty good arguments, referencing some previous statements by Kovalev.
“Why did he have to say he was gonna whoop his black ass? Why couldn’t you just say, ‘I’m gonna whoop his ass,’ why did you have to bring up the color of his skin? You just made that a racist comment. Then you put a picture up on Twitter of a monkey and tagged Adonis Stevenson. You say it was a joke, but you’re just a racist,” Pascal stated pacing back and forth with the microphone (via Bad Left Hook).
Pascal’s final comment was, “On Saturday night you’re gonna see, I’m not a monkey, I’m a gorilla.”
Once John David Jackson got to the podium, it only got worse. “Sometimes the things he says come out wrong, but if he was a racist, I wouldn’t be in his corner.”
After that, Pascal interrupted with another tirade. “He came to you three weeks before the fight, he doesn’t trust you because your black, stand up for the black people,” said Pascal.
From there more words were yelled out between the two, with at one point Pascal standing up and Jackson and Pascal being pulled apart. Kovalev called Pascal a “piece of shit” a few times and Jackson told Pascal he was going to get knocked out.
Order was somehow restored enough for Pascal and Kovalev to do the traditional face off, but no doubt the fireworks before the fight built up some major excitement for Saturday night.
