Bernard Hopkins-Jean Pascal Press Tour stops in Toronto
A press tour promoting the upcoming December 18 light heavyweight title bout between champion Jean Pascal and challenger Bernard Hopkins has passed through Toronto.
The tour brought big name fighters and promoters to a city that hadn’t seen as much for years.
Hopkins, the legendary veteran, spoke about ‘teaching’ the younger Pascal a lesson when they fight and taking him to school, while Pascal reiterated he had a diploma and that it was time for Hopkins to hang up the gloves.
The tour also landed Golden Boy CEO Oscar De la Hoya in Toronto, who promotes Hopkins, for the first time since he was an amateur in the eighties.
Hopkins-Pascal will take place at the Pepsi Coliseum in Quebec City.
It is undeniably one of the biggest boxing matches to take place in Canadian history. Both fighters are guaranteed to receive excess of $1.5-million, which will not only be a personal best for Pascal, but will also make him the highest paid Canadian fighter
in history.
Though Toronto doesn’t offer the ecstatic boxing fan base of Montreal, it made sense to promote the fight in Ontario due to the fight’s sheer magnitude and necessity to promote fighters’ names on a larger scale.
In Canada the bout will be available to buy on major cable networks, and will be broadcast through Showtime.
A discussion on the details of the broadcast in Canada led Hopkins to suggest that HBO, the biggest broadcaster of boxing in the world, was not interested in the fight because Pascal is not yet a big enough name.
In fact, many believe the opposite is true—Pascal’s last fight against then undefeated Chad Dawson was HBO endorsed, and by all accounts the company appeared pleasantly delighted by Pascal’s performance. Hopkins, on the other hand, seems to have warded
off giants HBO with a series of lackluster fights, culminating in an April bout with rival Roy Jones Jr.
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