PBC on FS1 comes to us with a special Friday edition of the series this week. It is a notably good one too. In the main event, Egyptian PBC light heavyweight prospect Ahmed Elbiali steps up in a huge way to meet former top fighter Jean Pascal. Much maligned but quite good Cuban heavyweight Luis “King Kong” Ortiz also returns on this card on short notice.
Egyptian born, Miami based light heavyweight Ahmed Elbiali (16-0, 13 KOs) certainly brings some interesting marketing potential to the table. Basically no top fighters come from North Africa. In fact, I can’t name another North African fighter at all. Haymon and company look to be trying to cash in on this unique opportunity here too. In all promotional material that I have seen, Elbiali is left of center. This is where the A-side has always gone. This is Elbiali versus Pascal and not the other way around.
For an unproven and frankly not that hyped fighter to be made the A-list fighter against a reasonably big, albeit faded name like Jean Pascal (31-5-1, 18 KOs) is quite unusual. For what it is worth, Elbiali has looked really good this year against regional fighters in Jackson Junior and Christopher Brooker, stopping both dominantly and easily. Yet, I can’t help but remember him struggling against a similar fighter in Andrew Hernandez only a year ago. This will only be his second ten round fight as well.
It seems to me that the assumption here is that Jean Pascal is entirely shot. He might just be too. After all, Sergey Kovalev has put a pair of vicious beatings on the Haitian born Montreal fighter. His fan friendly style has led to a lot more punishment over time too dating almost a decade back now since his very fun narrow loss to Carl Froch. Last time out in June against a top quality light heavyweight in Eleider Alvarez, I wrote the following about Pascal’s performance:
…Pascal was able to steal three or four inactive rounds by flurrying at the end, but Alvarez won basically any round in which he moved his hands consistently. His jab was especially effective.
Overall, despite long lulls, the fight wasn’t a bad watch due to the explosive nature of when they did exchange. Pascal showed he does have a little left, which must admit I did not expect. He also illustrated that he is no longer able to bring the activity needed to win at this level, however. With the wars he has been through, it makes sense that he is starting to have real difficulty pulling the trigger at this late stage of his career. Jean Pascal is an old 33.
I am guessing that Pascal isn’t a younger 34 now, but this fight does represent one last seemingly winnable chance to push himself back towards the top. If the PBC team believes enough in Ahmed Elbiali to put him in this fight, then he is probably going to win. The Egyptian-American has some power too, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the former titleholder finds himself in deep trouble early before he gets his footing. Elbiali isn’t exactly a super athlete, however. He is slow and heavy enough on his feet for this to be interesting if it stretches long enough and Pascal has anything left in the tank to work with. I am looking forward to this fight.
Bryant Perrella (14-1, 13 KOs) and Alex Martin (13-2, 5 KOs) meet in a well matched if inconsequential welterweight fight as well. With both of these guys coming off a loss this may very well be a loser leaves town match in terms of fighting under the PBC banner. This has been the scheduled co-man event ever since Chad Dawson’s scheduled fight with Edwin Rodriguez fell through over a week ago
At the near last minute, top heavyweight and multiple time drug cheat Luis “King King” Ortiz (27-0, 23 KOs) has been added to the show against trial horse Daniel Martz (16-5-1, 13 KOs). The 38 Cuban will have not fought in a year at this point thanks to his drug test failures. At this point Ortiz may never get his shot and he has himself entirely to blame. This fight will not be competitive.
Fox Sports 1 has the show at 9 PM Eastern on Friday.
