Pascal was scheduled to fight on the Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul undercard.
Oh, you thought Jean Pascal was done testing positive for banned substances? Think again.
The former light heavyweight champion, who’d already popped for three steroids in a VADA drug test, can now add EPO to the list. He was scheduled to rematch Badou Jack in the co-main event of Sunday’s Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul card in Miami, but the first batch of drug test news nixed him.
Ring Magazine’s Dan Rafael reported the news on Thursday.
Pascal (35-6-1-1 NC, 20 KOs) is 38 years old and had initially retired in 2017 before coming back in 2018 to fight former UFC fighter Steve Bosse. After defeating Bosse by TKO, Pascal lost to current WBA champion Dmitry Bivol and then scored consecutive upsets over Marcus Browne and Badou Jack to re-establish himself as a major name at 175 lbs.
After the epitrenbolone/drostanalone/drostanalone metabolite triple crown of positive tests, Pascal went on social media and denied knowingly taking these substances, then announced the firing of his unidentified strength and conditioning coach.
If you were already skeptical of Pascal’s story then the EPO positive likely wipes out any benefit of the doubt. You usually don’t “oopsie daisy” your way into having EPO in your system, seeing as that can only be administered via injection.
Longtime boxing fans may recall that Pascal was the one who accused Bernard Hopkins of PED use prior to their 2011 rematch, which Hopkins went on to win. Hopkins has never failed a drug test, and look what happened a full decade later.
As for Jack, he will instead face Venezuela’s Dervin Colina (15-0, 13 KOs), who’s largely fought local opposition in his home country and no one remotely on Badou’s level. Let’s hope that he can do the bare minimum of pass a drug test so that Jack can get paid.