Former light heavyweight titleholder Jean Pascal will face Roberto Feliciano Bolonti on Dec. 6 at Bell Centre in Montreal in the wake of failed negotiations with previously scheduled opponent, Donovan George, according to a release from promoter Jean Bedard of Interbox.

Bolonti (35-3, 24 knockouts) was originally scheduled for a main event bout against former IBF super middleweight titleholder Lucian Bute, who was forced to pulled out of their bout last week with a back injury. Pascal-George was slated to be the co-feature.

“This decision was taken after careful consideration following long negotiations with Donovan’s team,” read the release from Bedard, in part.

Pascal (29-2-1, 17 knockouts), 32, is returning to the site of his last win, which was over Bute, whom he defeated by unanimous decision in January. The Bute win was Pascal’s third straight, having also scored a unanimous decision over Aleksy Kuziemski and a fifth-round knockout of George Blades since losing his WBC title via unanimous decision to Bernard Hopkins in May 2011.

“There comes a time when negotiations have to stop and you’ve got to move forward,” said Bedard in the release. “Pascal vs. Bolonti was a scenario we’d already considered and we think it’s the right one. Plus, it’s important for Jean Pascal to fight so he can direct his career.”

Pascal is the mandatory challenger to RING and WBC 175-pound champion Adonis Stevenson, who is slated for a Dec. 19 date with Russian Dmitry Sukhotsky in Quebec City.

Should Pascal get beyond Bolonti and Stevenson defeat Sukhotsky, they are targeted for a potential April 4 showdown at the Bell Centre, according to Stevenson’s promoter, Yvon Michel.

In his last fight in June, Bolonti lost a unanimous decision to Juergen Braehmer that ended his run of five straight wins. Bolonti’s previous loss before Braehmer was by unanimous decision to Tony Bellew in November 2012.

“This time, I was lucky to have a good, long-term training camp for combat outside Argentina,” said Bolonti, 35. “It would have been a shame not to have the opportunity to fight. Although his style is different than Bute’s, Pascal is just as big a challenge for me.”

In addition to the Pascal-George fight, Bedard has said that there will be a live, in-arena broadcast of the same evening’s HBO-televised junior middleweight bout between Canadian David Lemieux and Gabriel Rosado from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.