Promotion for Sergey Kovalev vs. Jean Pascal Has Taken Ugly, Unfortunate Turn

Sergey Kovalev doesn’t look like the kind of dude you want to piss off.

Which means that Jean Pascal is playing a dangerous game, indeed.

Kovalev will defend his unified light heavyweight championship against Pascal Saturday night at the Bell Center in Montreal in a rematch that has been shaded by the ugly specter of racism that sadly still remains an issue in the world of 2016.

Pascal has made one thing absolutely, unambiguously clear during the promotion for this fight—which has been given a lukewarm (at best) reception by most mainstream boxing fans and media—he believes Kovalev is a racist.

The former lineal light heavyweight champion re-emphasized that point during Wednesday afternoon’s final presser ahead of the fight, bringing a bag of bananas with him to taunt Kovalev, who has more than once made racially insensitive comments about his opponents and rivals.

Pascal even dropped a banana in front of Kovalev's trainer John David Jackson, who is black.

As Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports correctly pointed out on Thursday, injecting race is no way to hype a fight, but that doesn’t appear to be what Pascal is up to here. He’s not looking to throw Kovalev off kilter ahead of a big fight most expect will go in a similar fashion as the first bout, he’s genuinely angry (video contains profanity).

Pascal referenced Kovalev’s description of 2013 foe Ismayl Sillakh as a “monkey” and has frequently been willing to discuss a plainly stupid tweet dropped (and since deleted) by the Krusher early last year that depicted his chief rival Adonis Stevenson as a monkey wearing boxing gloves.

“He’s a racist guy...This fight for me is kind of personal. I’m fighting ignorance, because he’s an ignorant guy to still be racist in 2016,” Pascal said, per Keith Idec of Boxing Scene. “Last year, he posted on Twitter a picture of a monkey to represent [Adonis] Stevenson. I don’t like Stevenson neither, but I would never do that.”

Maybe he’s looking to hype himself up—provide extra motivation and cause ahead of a difficult task—but that functions as a double-edged sword. You always need to be careful when kicking a hornets nest.

It's often not wise.

Kovalev and his team have repeatedly issued flat denials that the fighter is racist, including interviews with RingTV and Boxing Scene.

His snafus have been explained as the result of a certain level of cultural ignorance and misunderstanding of context rather than racist motivations.

The fighter, who grew up in Russia and without the exposure to the many challenges and struggles faced by African Americans and other minorities in this part of the world, clearly remains rough around the edges and needs to learn to pick his words more carefully.

Kovalev has built himself into one of the fastest-rising stars in the sport, going from relative anonymity a couple of years ago to the No. 2 slot on the coveted pound-for-pound rankings of The Ring Magazine, but his ability to acclimate to the realities of the world around him will play a part in whether he stays there.

Ignorance, in this case, not only isn't bliss, it's not acceptable. 

Pascal’s decision to make race a central issue in this fight obviously poses some significant risks for him as a fighter.

Not the least of which being that Kovalev, whatever you may or may not think about his words or the offered explanations, is probably the last bear you want to poke in the eye with a stick.

He’s not subtle. He doesn’t do nuance.

Kovalev has the demeanor of a guy who would be just as comfortable chasing Sarah Connor around 1980s Los Angeles as trading fists inside a boxing ring.

He doesn’t talk trash, he warns.

According to Edward Chaykovsky of Boxing Scene, Kovalev said:

"

I want this [to make Pascal retire], we'll see. But usually all my opponents stop their career or move their division, but last fight I didn't finish my job.

Pascal has said bad things to my side. I have a reason for fighting him. I think Pascal has reason to say thank you to Luis Pabon, the referee for the [first] fight. He forgot to say thank you very much that he saved his health and life maybe.

"

That’s kind of chilling.

And he means it.

Kathy Duva, the firebrand head of Main Events, who promotes Kovalev and has been his fiercest defender throughout this whole saga, didn’t mince words when discussing what Pascal should expect from her fighter after weeks of accusations and his antics at the final presser.

“He’s going to get his ass kicked more thoroughly than he did the last time. I do not respect much of what he said, which was ugly and uncalled for. It was completely unnecessary,” Duva said, per Herb Zukowsky of the Montreal Gazette.

Everything about this situation screams unfortunate.

Hopefully it serves as a learning and growth experience for everyone involved.

And you can make your own judgements on both Kovalev and Pascal’s motivations, but one thing is for sure: The latter has written a lot of checks in the past several months that will, one way or another, come due Saturday night.

Kevin McRae is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. You can follow him on Twitter @McRaeWrites.