by David P. Greisman, live from ringside

MONTREAL — Sergey Kovalev punished Jean Pascal over the course of seven rounds in a one-sided rematch that could’ve easily ended a couple of rounds earlier, winning by technical knockout when Pascal’s new trainer, Freddie Roach, refused to allow his fighter to continue on.

It was a wise choice. Kovalev had punished Pascal, who did far too little to try to stem the punishment and had little effect even when he tried. The punishment wasn’t going to stop until Pascal was stopped. Roach was wise to take that decision into his hands before Kovalev could do any more damage with his own.

This rematch was one minute shorter than their first fight, which ended as an eighth-round technical knockout 10 months ago, also at Bell Centre.

Even though Kovalev had stopped Pascal before — or perhaps because of it — Kovalev put forth a patient first round, working behind a steady supply of hard jabs to the body and occasional right hands there as well. Pascal, meanwhile, stuck to the same strategy as before, wanting to land hard counters against his aggressor.

Except Kovalev had shown an ability to take Pascal’s shots in the first fight and would do the same in the second. Pascal had been broken down by Kovalev’s power in 2015 and would have it happen to him again in 2016.

Pascal was able to have a better third round, though, landing a good right hand early on. Kovalev took it and kept at it, landing a hard right hand to the side of Pascal’s hand a little later. Pascal also scored with a hard left hook toward the end of the third. He still only threw 20 punches during the round, landing 10, including 8 power shots.

Pascal was credited with landing only 10 more punches in total over the next four rounds.

Kovalev wobbled Pascal on the ropes with a right hand with about a minute left in the fourth. He also hurt Pascal with right hands early in the fifth. Pascal tried a Hail Mary of a left hook off the ropes that missed, then held on to give himself a momentary respite. The onslaught soon continued. Pascal at one point covered up on the ropes. Just when it seemed as if the referee might step in to end the fight, Pascal instead moved forward and grabbed onto Kovalev again.

Yet it wasn’t that Kovalev was allowing Pascal to recover. He admitted afterward that he wanted to keep hurting someone he didn’t like. Kovalev was prolonging it for as long as he could. So after going 31 of 73 in the fifth — including 20 of 47 with power punches, an assault that led Roach to tell Pascal he wanted to stop the fight — Kovalev took his foot off the gas in the sixth. He went 19 of 57 and threw far fewer power shots, going just 5 of 23. Pascal was a mere 3 of 8, with all of those landed punches coming from jabs.

“I wanted to fight more rounds and make him feel pain and punish him more," Kovalev said afterward. "I punished a not-good person and everybody understands."

Pascal asked Roach for one more round after the sixth. That’s all he got.

Pascal again threw a left hook to try to change the fight. Kovalev again absorbed it and kept throwing hard right hands. He even leaned on Pascal to try to tire him further.

It had seemed over for some time. And then the end was officially there.

All three judges had it 70-62 after seven rounds, giving Kovalev a 10-8 fifth round even without a knockdown being scored.

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Kovalev, a 32-year-old originally from Russia and now training out of Florida, moves to 29-0-1 with 26 KOs. He also moves closer toward an anticipated fight with former super middleweight champion Andre Ward later in the year.

“Fans want it and the fight should be made," Ward said during the HBO broadcast. "We are working out the details”

That fight is far more likely than a long-anticipated clash with lineal 175-pound champ Adonis Stevenson, who has the one major world title not presently held by Kovalev, who has the other three.

Kovalev mentioned Stevenson in his post-fight interview and Stevenson, who was seated ringside, ascended the steps and entered the ring. Yet there would be no repeat of the televised confrontation seen weeks ago from heavyweight champion Tyson Fury following Deontay Wilder’s knockout of Artur Szpilka in Brooklyn.

And that sadly may be the only time that Kovalev and Stevenson share the same ring. Their camps have yet to reach an agreement more than two years after negotiations began.

This was Kovalev’s seventh successful title defense. He picked up a belt in 2013 with a victory over Nathan Cleverly, then made three defenses before topping Bernard Hopkins and acquiring two more belts in the process. Next came the first Pascal bout, then a third-round drubbing of mandatory challenger Nadjib Mohammedi last July, and now this Pascal rematch.

Pascal, meanwhile, has two losses in the past year to one of the best light heavyweights out there, but those losses have consequences. The former champion had come back from his first loss to Kovalev by fighting on the undercard of Kovalev-Mohammedi about four months later. He won a unanimous decision over Yunieski Gonzalez but didn’t look good, and many observers believed Gonzalez had deserved the victory.

The 33-year-old fighting out Laval, Quebec, is now 30-4-1 and is far removed from his peak in August 2010, when he won the championship from Chad Dawson. That was followed by a draw with Hopkins and then a loss to Hopkins in their rematch.

"I will be back and better than ever, but as always I know my performances dictate my narrative so I will let my next fights do all my talking," Pascal said afterward. "I feel like I let myself, my team and my close family at Interbox down but we will continue to work together and build our companies, our fantastic market and god willing my next title fight in the process."

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