MONTREAL — Sergey (Krusher) Kovalev retained his three light heavyweight titles when an unusually passive Jean Pascal of Laval, Que., saw his corner throw in the towel after only seventh rounds on Saturday night.
Kovalev (29-0-1) kept his IBF, WBA and WBC belts with likely the easiest win of his pro career before about 10,000 disappointed fans at the Bell Centre. It was not at all like the brawl between the same two fighters in same venue last March, when the Russian won in eight spirited rounds.
It was Pascal's first bout under renowned trainer Freddie Roach, who ended up as the one who signalled to referee Michael Griffin that the bout was over.
Pascal (30-4-1) seemed to abandon any idea of attack, throwing only occasional punches while absorbing a beating round after round from the hard-hitting Kovalev.
The 33-year-old Pascal, who held the WBC title until 2011, is known as a showman in the ring, constantly on offence, but was unrecognizable this time out.
Current WBC champion Adonis Stevenson watched from ringside.
The undercard included a spectacular slugfest as Francis Lafreniere won a unanimous decision over veteran Renan St-Juste to claim the minor IBF International middleweight title.
The Bell Centre crowd roared as the two Montreal fighters went toe-to-toe over 10 rounds, with 43-year-old St-Juste (26-5-1) barely hanging on to the final bell against 27-year-old Lafreniere (11-5-2).
Two ringside judges had it 97-92 and other 99-90, even though it looked to be a much closer match until the last three rounds and Lafreniere was deducted a point for a low blow in the eighth.
"He doesn't hit hard but he throws a lot of punches," said St-Juste, once a world ranked middleweight. "I'm not used to fighting like that.
"He had his hands up and he was coming in all the time. I gave it everything I had, but he deserved the win."
Both Lafreniere's eyes were badly swollen after the bout. The win will put hi into the IBF's top-15 ranking and should open up bigger bouts in future.
Afterwards St-Juste would not commit to a rematch or say whether it was his last bout.
The co-feature saw Russian Dmitry Mikhaylenko (21-0-0) win all 10 rounds on two judges cards and nine of 10 on the other against American Karim Mayfield (19-3-1). Mikhaylenko won the USBA welterweight title.
Light middleweight Steven Butler (14-0-1) of Montreal absorbed some big punches in the middle rounds but knocked down Angola native Antonio Hoffman (13-1-0) in the eighth to post a unanimous decision.
Another light-middleweight, Virgilijus Stapulionis (17-3-1) of Lithuania knocked down Laszlo Fazekas (27-24-1) of Hungary four times before their scheduled eight-rounder was stopped in the second.
David Theroux (9-1-0) of Sorel, Que., ended his welterweight bout with Mexico's Juan Armando Garcia (12-3-2) with a left to the body in the third round.
Joel Diaz (21-0), a light welterweight co-promoted by Pascal, stopped Abraham Gomez (13-21-3) of Mexico in the second round of a scheduled six-round bout.
And super-bantamweight Vislan Dalkaev (3-0), a Russian based in Montreal, was all over Alan Salazar (5-2) of Mexico for the unanimous decision in a four-rounder.
A heavyweight battle saw American Cassius Chaney (6-0-0) batter Zoltan Csala (9-5-0) until it was stopped at 2:52 of the third with the Hungarian barely staying upright.
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