Greg Leon’s deck of cards

PLANT CITY, Fla. | The event promoter at Probox Event Center won’t say publicly, but Jean Pascal messed up his company’s plans with his win over Fanlong Meng.

What comes after this 36th career win in 43 fights for the former world champion?

The prime prospect thinks he can get a championship fight on his next outing.

“I just beat the #1 contender in the IBF. He was an undefeated boxer. I’m back in the mix. I should never have left this position.

“I’m back at the top. I’ll be sitting down with Greg Leon for the continuation of things.

Like going to a restaurant

Leon cut out his work for him. He will try to find another paid fight for Pascal to take place before the end of the year. With his victory on Friday, he has good cards in his hand.

“It’s like going to a restaurant,” explained Greg Leon. We look at the menu and decide which dish we want to eat.

“We will try to make the decision that makes the most sense. As always, we will decide as a team and explain the pros and cons to Jean.

The Quebec boxer’s manager must now lobby the IBF to ensure that his athlete finds a favorable place in the sanctioning body’s rankings.

“At the weigh-in I already warned the IBF representative that Jean’s fight against Fanlong Meng had met all the criteria (weight and number of rounds) to be a KO fight.

“Through my discussions with the IBF people, I think it’s unrealistic to think that Jean could find himself in the position of first contender. We didn’t pay the penalty fee for a playoff fight.”

However, it is not excluded that Pascal will find himself in the top 5 of this association behind Joshua Buatsi, Anthony Yarde, Gilberto Ramirez and Badou Jack.

At the moment it’s hard to imagine that Pascal could find himself in a world title fight by the end of the year. There is already a unification fight between Artur Beterbiev and Joe Smith jr in June. Three of the four £175 titles are at stake.

The other light heavyweight champion, Dmitry Bivol, could get a rematch proposal against Canelo Alvarez. However, nothing is confirmed.

We start an idea like this: a second duel between Pascal and Jack at 180 or 185 lbs. It would be a good time for the two men to settle old scores that have been dragging on since December 2019.