Kovalev & Pascal Make Weight

By Michael Woods

We are that much closer to fight night, as Sergey Kovalev and Jean Pascal both made weight, under the light heavyweight limit, the day before their clash at the Bell Center in Montreal, and on HBO.

Kovalev (seen above in pic by the majestic David Spagnolo) was 174.6, with a hat on, and the hometown fave Pascal was 174.3.

Main Events is the promoter, along with Interbox.

All wondered if Pascal would look to initiate a scuffle but no. It looked to me like Kovalev considered his rival might do that, so he looked to make the stare-down brief. (Note: above graphic comes from Kovalev Instagram; he's countered Pascal accusations of racist tendencies by referring to his foe as a, you guessed it, clown.)

Happily, there was no scale fail. I heard that Kovalev has a new nutritionist and that made this cut smoother.

True, manager Egis Klimas? Yes, it is true, he told me.

“Easy, no problem at all. Yes, he has him cutting out some foods and eating correctly, small meals, cutting down on portion size and eating more vegetables,” Klimas said.

HBO kicks off their show at 9:45 pm ET. A welterweight fight between
Dmitry Mikhaylenko (146.7 lbs.) and
Karim Mayfield (147 lbs.) is the opener.