Freddie Roach To Jean Pascal: You Are Better Than Roy Jones
Updated at 09:01 PM EST, Thu Jan 28, 2016 Read More By :
By Luke Furman
There is a lot of tension between the fighters involved in this Saturday's rematch between IBF/WBA/WBO light heavyweight title holder Sergey Kovalev and former world champion Jean Pascal. The fight will happen at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.
The clashed last March, at the same venue, in a very exciting fight that saw Kovalev win with a TKO in eight rounds. Pascal complained that it was stopped too early and pushed for a rematch. With very few options in the pool of opponents for Kovalev, Pascal;s wish for a second fight was granted.
This time Pascal will not have longtime trainer Marc Ramsey at his side. He will come to the ring with Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach, who was hired late last year.
The fight will be a very tough first assignment for Roach.
During their first camp together, Roach has tried to get Pascal (30-3-1, 17 KO) to stop acting wild in the ring, which the fighter usually does when he decides to stand and trade. Pascal also has a bad habit of allowing himself to get backed up against the ropes, which gave Kovalev (28-0-1, 25 KO) a lot of opening in their first fight.
Roach told Pascal to stop imitating Roy Jones Jr. - who the Canadian star idolized and even used as a co-trainer in recent fights. Roach feels Pascal is a better overall fighter than Jones - a big statement to make when consider that Jones is a former four division world champion and during much of his prime he was regarded as the best fighter in the world.
"I told him 'with your speed you can back this guy up and beat him with your speed.' The left hand is the key to this fight. I know he depends a lot more on the right. But his left hand is a really good weapon. He has a great jab, great speed and great power and I know he can back this guy up," Roach told RDS.
"He likes to go [against the ropes] and he likes to be a little bit like Roy Jones. I told him 'would you get that out of your head - you are better than Roy Jones.' And he just looks at me and says 'you think so' and I said 'I know so.'"
Roach also cleared up a recent statement that he made. In a joke that some took seriously, Roach threatened to leave during the fight if Pascal refused to follow orders.
"People sometimes take my jokes a little too seriously, like when I told him that if [he embarrassed me in there] when he'd come back to the corner I wouldn't be there. I would never leave my fighter of course," Roach said.
60/40 sounds good Kell 
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