Photos: Eleider Alvarez Turns Back Jean Pascal at Bell Centre

Bell Centre, Montreal - In a battle for the WBC light heavyweight Silver world title, Eleider Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) won a twelve round majority decision over former world champion Jean Pascal (31-5-1, 18 KOs), who had former four division champion Roy Jones Jr. working his corner. The scores were 114-114, 117-111 and 116-112 for Alvarez.

Alvarez returns from a February fight, where he knocked out former world champion Lucian Bute in five rounds. Alvarez is the mandatory challenger to the WBC world title, which is held by Adonis Stevenson.

Pascal was returning from a quick victory in December, after taking a very bad beating in a January 2016 stoppage defeat in his rematch with Sergey Kovalev.

Alvarez came out with his jab, taking the lead in the first round by boxing and throwing calculated punches. Pascal clipped him with a big counter, a right hand shot and then started letting those hands go in the final twenty seconds to steal the thunder from Alvarez.

Alvarez went back to the jab in the second round, while Pascal was searching for more counters. Alvarez rocked him with hard combination of punches and Pascal was holding on. Pascal was stumbling as Alvarez was stalking him down with shots to the head and body. Pascal was doing a lot of holding to clear his head from the earlier shots. Alvarez landed another hard combination at the end of the round.

The third started with Alvarez going right after Pascal, throwing clubbing punches with both hands and using his jab to work his way in. Pascal started letting those hands go in the final ten seconds, looking to steal the round as they were exchanging hard shots. In the fourth there was more trading of hard punches when they got in close. Both throwing a jab, but Alvarez was much better with his.

Two big shots landed for Alvarez at the start of the fifth. He was walking down Pascal with big punches and the sharp jab. In the sixth, Pascal was trying to turn it around with big punches, but Alvarez was still controlling things with his jab. In the seventh, there wasn't much action going until Pascal exploded with a variety of punches in the final twenty seconds.

Pascal getting more active in the eight with shots to the body, throwing a lot of punches as Alvarez was working the jab. Alvarez came out being very aggressive in the ninth, pushing the pace and taking the fight to Pascal. Alvarez rocked him with two uppercuts and then took the fight to Pascal and tried to finish him off. But then Pascal recovered and started landing big punches on the body of Alvarez, who would eventually regain control with the jab.

Pascal came out attacking Alvarez in the tenth. Alvarez went right back to the jab and Pascal back to the body. Alvarez controlled the action, until Pascal exploded with a combination of hard shots in the final fifteen seconds. In the eleventh, Alvarez continued to jab and control the pace. Pascal was going back to the body as Alvarez was pumping the jab. They were down and dirty with punches in the closing seconds.

A battle of jabs to start of the twelfth. Alvarez controlling things and pumping his jab forward. Pascal appeared to be tired, with Alvarez just boxing his way to the final bell with big combinations.