Pascal – Hopkins official

According to Dan Rafael the WBC/Ring Magazine Light Heavyweight champion Jean Pascal will take on Bernard Hopkins on December 18th in Quebec City, Canada and it will be televised on Showtime PPV.

“Showtime will be using their announcers and doing it like a first-class Showtime broadcast. Showtime is excited about it and so are we,” Said Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer.

Hopkins said he weighed 182 pounds on Thursday and was anxious to begin training for the 175-pound fight. He usually prepares for fights in Miami, but said he would instead train in either Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains or New York’s Catskill Mountains.

“I’m doing that because of the climate and the conditions,” Hopkins told ESPN.com just before signing on the dotted line. “I’m not going to train in 80-degree Miami and then go to Canada, where it will be five below.”

“This is the fight where I see if I can go forward or does it end for me,” said Hopkins, who routed nemesis Roy Jones in a lopsided decision in April in a rematch of Jones’ middleweight title win 17 years ago.

“I know what I gotta do to pull out another surprise,” Hopkins said.