by David P. Greisman

Three world titles weren't the only thing on the line when Sergey Kovalev met Jean Pascal in a rematch. They had also bet $50,000 on whether Pascal could last longer than he had in their first fight, which Kovalev won by eighth-round technical knockout - a bet that had nothing to do with whether Pascal could even win this time around.

The stoppage in the first fight came 1 minute and 3 seconds into the eighth. And Pascal lost by technical knockout again in the second fight, with his trainer Freddie Roach costing him the cash by wisely pulling the plug on the one-sided beat-down after the seventh round ended.

Kovalev said he wasn’t trying for the early win, but that it came nevertheless. He also had said that he wanted to prolong the punishment he was dishing out to Pascal because of how much Kovalev disliked him.

“It’s not my goal in any fight to stop early somebody. I do my job in the ring and it just the result of my job,” Kovalev said at the post-fight press conference.

The $50,000 was never going to pad either Kovalev’s or Pascal’s pockets — their agreement was that it would go to charity.

 “I am going to donate this to the children in Russia,” Kovalev said after the rematch win. “I’m happy.”

 Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com