On Saturday night, Sergey Kovalev meets Jean Pascal for the second time, as Pascal again challenges Kovalev for supremacy in boxing's Light Heavyweight division. While there are indeed some interesting aspects to the rematch - most notably Pascal's move to training with the great Freddie Roach - the most notable part of pre-fight build has also been the ugliest.
At a press conference this week, an aggravated Pascal nearly came to blows with Kovalev trainer John David Jackson. The issue? Pascal's repeated accusations that Sergey Kovalev is a racist.
Things got off to a bad start at the press conference when Pascal took out a bunch of bananas and offered one to Kovalev, stating:
Kovy, do you want a banana? You're white. I know you're white, and it's only for black people, bananas, you know. Do you want to take it for your black coach? He might want to eat it because he's black. You want to keep it for your black coach?
From there, Pascal continued by bringing up comments he stated Kovalev made in 2013 towards Ismayl Sillakh:
He said in 2013 that Ismayl Sillakh, a black Russian with a dark skin, is a monkey. He said he was going to whip his black ass. He could have said "I'm going to whip your ass." But why did he have to put the color in the sentence? "Whip your black ass." That's a racist comment.
Once Pascal finished, Jackson (who is African-American) defended his fighter, stating:
Sergey may say things that, at the time that he says them, they may come out the wrong way. But if he were racist, I wouldn't be in his corner. Trust me, I wouldn't be here.
In response, Pascal stood up, and shouted over Jackson, telling him to: "Stand up for black people!"
For Kovalev, this is far from the first time he has been hit with these accusations. In January 2014, during a Russian-language interview with Russian site Allboxing, Kovalev used the terms Negro and dark-skinned people. Kovalev manager Egis Klimas quickly spoke to RingTV to address the issue:
We still use today in Russia, for black people, the word Negro,... So they are trying to make him out to be a racist because of that reference to black people. In the interview, he used the word Negro for black persons. And then, he tried to be polite and to explain it by saying dark-skinned people... That's what he meant. But some stupid reporters are trying to use that information to make Sergey look bad. He is not a racist. He is a nice person and I hate to have to explain that every time that I talk to a member of the media.
Then, in April 2015, Kovalev tweeted a picture of a child wearing a shirt that depicted a boxer with a monkey's head photo-shopped on. Kovalev added the caption "Adonis looks great!!!" referring to Adonis Stevenson. Kovalev issued this apology via Twitter:
I apologize for my tweet about Adonis Stevenson. I really did not know it was bad. In the last few days my friends at Main Events teach me some history about the United States. It is very different to where I grew up in Chelyabinsk. I'm still learning here and I understand I have made a mistake. I hope I can be forgiven this mistake and I will not do such a thing again.
Both the original tweet and the apology were quickly removed.
According to Pascal, this race issue has made this much more than just a boxing match, as he explained in the early hype for the fight last December:
This fight's personal. I'm fighting ignorance. He's an ignorant guy to still be racist in 2016. Those things have no place in society. We need to teach this Russian a good lesson. I'm not trying to play the racist card. He's just a racist.
Sergey Kovalev vs. Jean Pascal II is live on HBO this Saturday night. Bloody Elbow will have live fight night coverage.