MONTREAL - Dejection was written on Jean Pascal's face after the most lopsided defeat of his 35-fight pro boxing career.

The former champion had been mauled for seven rounds by unified light heavyweight champ Sergey Kovalev before about 10,000 of Pascal's disappointed hometown fans on Saturday night at the Bell Centre.

"I'm sad," was all Pascal could say about how he felt after the match. "He was just better than me tonight."

Kovalev (29-0-1 with 26 knockouts) retained his championship belts from the WBA, WBO and IBF by winning the rematch only 10 months after needing eight far more difficult rounds to stop Pascal (30-4-1) in their first meeting.

To prepare for the second meeting, Pascal had dropped longtime coach Marc Ramsay and hired renowned trainer Freddie Roach. It was Roach who ended up signalling to referee Michael Griffin that his fighter was done after the seventh round.

The fight statistics said it all. Kovalev landed 165 punches to only 30 for Pascal, whose nose looked flattened and bruised, likely from a Kovalev shot in the third round.

"The first fight he was more dangerous," said Kovalev. "This time he didn't have anything new.

"I controlled all his movements."

It had been a stormy week, with Pascal accusing the Russian of racism over some questionable comments last year about WBC champion Adonis Stevenson of Montreal and others.

He made a grand entrance to the ring, with fight star Roy Jones Jr. leading the way, while Kovalev was accompanied by former Montreal Canadiens star Alex Kovalev (no relation).

But once inside, the usually attacking, free-swinging Pascal looked passive, never mounting a serious threat to the skilled and power-hitting Kovalev, who may have dragged the bout out an extra round or two just to rub it in.

"I was much better prepared this time because it was a personal fight," said Kovalev. "I wanted to punish him for those bad words — a lot of trash. I'm happy that I did it."

He won every round clearly and looked to have knocked Pascal down in the first round.

Roach said the jab that backed up sparring partners in camp didn't work on Kovalev, whose power kept Pascal backing up and unable to launch attacks. Instead, he absorbed repeated lefts and rights from the champion.

Roach wanted to stop the bout a round earlier, but Pascal asked for one more round.

"I have a warrior's heart," said Pascal. "I wanted to continue but Freddie was there to make the right decision for my future."

However, Kovalev apparently didn't fulfil his pre-fight wish to end his career because 33-year-old Pascal vowed to keep fighting.

Stevenson watched from ringside. He and Kovalev have been unable to arrange a unification bout because they fight for rival television networks.

After the bout, Stevenson went into the ring to try to take the microphone from Kovalev, who refereed to him as "Chicken-son" because he believes the Montreal fighter has been ducking him.

The undercard included a spectacular slugfest as Francis Lafreniere won a unanimous decision over veteran Renan St-Juste to claim the minor IBF International middleweight title.

The crowd roared as the two Montreal fighters went toe-to-toe over 10 rounds, with 43-year-old St-Juste (26-5-1) barely hanging on to the final bell against 27-year-old Lafreniere (11-5-2).

Afterwards St-Juste would not commit to a rematch or say whether it was his last bout.

The co-feature saw Russian Dmitry Mikhaylenko (21-0-0) win all 10 rounds on two judges cards and nine of 10 on the other against American Karim Mayfield (19-3-1). Mikhaylenko won the USBA welterweight title.