by Johnny Walker
Canadian light-heavyweight Jean Pascal saw his fight night cut short this evening, as his opponent, Roberto Bolonti, under heavy fire from Pascal in round two, and having already been knocked down once, went down again from a glancing blow to the side of the head given in response to the same shots he’d just delivered to Pascal.
Pascal’s bout was ruled a “no contest” as Roberto “The Beast” Bolonti hit the canvas and either refused to or couldn’t move, and was taken out of the ring on a stretcher to heavy booing from the crowd at the Bell Center in Montreal, Quebec.
Earlier in the round, Bolonti had been floored by a Pascal left hand, and was being wobbled constantly by Pascal’s heavy body shots.
There was some confusion as to how to score the fight, but eventually a “no contest” was settled on at 2:29 of round two due to the early stoppage, and Pascal will presumably be moving on to fight Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev early next year in a major boxing event in Quebec.
In other notable fights, Schiller Hippolyte (15-1, 10 KOs) defeated Norbert Nemesapati via TKO at 11:26 of round 11 for the WBC International Super Middleweight Championship.
Super Welterweight Steven Butler overpowered Lyes Chaibi with some big right hand power shots for a TKO at 1:14 of round five, while super featherweight Joel Diaz Jr. (18-0, 14 KOs) used a hard liver shot to stop Pedro Navarrete at the end of the fourth round.