QUEBEC CITY — The crowd was red hot heading into the twelfth round of the WBO bantamweight title fight this past January between Jason Moloney and Saul Sanchez. A casual fan in attendance at Videotron Centre in Quebec City might be surprised to learn that neither fighter was from Quebec, let alone Canada, but when eager boxing fans are met with good fights, the atmosphere is one that is tough to top in any sport.

It wasn’t a bad crowd for the opening fight of a televised tripleheader.

Over 10,000 fans packed into the arena that night for the event, which was headlined by unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev defending against Callum Smith, with over 4,000 already in the building by the time the fights began at 6 p.m. Typically at American shows, the majority of the crowd doesn’t arrive until just before the main event.

Quebec, the French speaking province in eastern Canada, has a long boxing tradition dating back to the earliest days of the organized sport. A little over a decade ago, Quebec had been one of the hottest boxing markets in the world, with local favorites like Lucien Bute, Jean Pascal and Adonis Stevenson creating a hometown buzz that rivaled the big fight excitement of Las Vegas.

As the scene begins to pick up once again, some are hopeful that Quebec boxing will see another Golden Era. The primary catalyst of the recent surge in excitement around Quebec’s boxing scene has been Eye of the Tiger Management, the Montreal based company which will co-promote this Saturday’s event at Videotron Centre alongside Top Rank, with Christian Mbilli headlining against perennial contender Sergiy Derevyanchenko in the main event of an ESPN/ESPN+ broadcast.

Camille Estephan, who founded Eye of the Tiger in 2008, says this event will be their seventh this year that will air live on ESPN or ESPN+. Though Eye of the Tiger acquired long-time Quebec promotional powerhouse Interbox in 2016, they didn’t immediately acquire the prosperous times that the company had enjoyed, though he says through relentless promotion a new generation of fans have begun to tune in.

“We do have a strong market in Quebec which we have built. We have a strong fanbase. They know their boxing very, very well. They appreciate people that are going to bring fireworks, they love offensive fighters who want to put on a show, that give it their all,” said Estephan.

“We need a world champion, and if one of these guys breaks through then we’re right there.”

Estephan is hopeful that Mbilli (27-0, 23 knockouts) will lead the charge. The 29-year-old super middleweight contender, who was born in Cameroon and raised in France, represented France in the 2016 Olympics and has grown into a top contender at 168 pounds in front of the local fans, having fought in Canada 15 times.

Derevyanchenko (15-5, 10 KOs) represents by far the biggest test of his young career. The 38-year-old Brooklyn-based Ukrainian has pushed Jaime Munguia, Gennadiy Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs to their limits, and could very well have earned the decisions in some of those fights. The winner could prove to be an attractive challenger for unified super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who remains the most lucrative boxer one can face today.

Bolstering the undercard will be a number of local boxers from their roster, including Wilkens Mathieu (9-0, 6 KOs), a 19-year-old super middleweight who was born and raised in Quebec City, plus Thomas Chabot (10-0, 8 KOs) of nearby Thetford Mines, and Leila Beaudoin (11-1, 1 KOs), a female junior lightweight from further north, Riviere-du-Loup, who will face Bolivia’s Lizbeth Crespo (15-7, 4 KOs) with the WBO international belt at stake in their ten rounder.

Chabot, a 24-year-old who represented Canada in international tournaments as an amateur, believes that the local scene will once again catch fire like it was in the days of Bute, a fellow southpaw whom Chabot once looked up to as a child. He believes he has the sort of exciting style that will help usher those days in.

“I absolutely think that Quebec will be back to where it was. We have a lot of prospects that are getting there like Christian Mbilli who is number one contender in the world [with the WBC], so I’m expecting more exposure from Quebec fighters on the international level. We also have a lot of young prospects like Wilkens Mathieu that have tremendous potential, and myself. I bring the same kind of excitement as Arturo Gatti, giving everything in the ring. That’s what makes boxing so popular and I believe I represent that as well,” said Chabot.

Thomas Chabot stands over Armando Ramirez in his second round TKO win in 2022. Photo by Vincent Ethier/EOTTM©2022

It isn’t just the pro scene that is on the upswing in Quebec. After a lull in 2020 and 2021 caused by shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of amateur boxers registered in Quebec have rebounded to near pre-pandemic numbers. In statistics shared to The Ring by Boxing Quebec, which oversees amateur boxing in the province, there are 5,108 registered boxers in 2024, up from 4,125 in 2023, and just shy of the 5,454 who boxed in 2019. Those boxers represented 132 different clubs, which is the highest number of registered gyms in the ten years of data shared.

The two boxers who represented Canada at the Paris Olympics, Wyatt Sanford and Tammara Thibeault, are both based in Quebec, with Sanford earning the country’s first boxing medal, a bronze in the men’s 63.5 kilogram division, in 28 years.

There are also no shortage of world class boxing trainers in the region, including Marc Ramsay, who trains Montreal-based Russian Artur Beterbiev, plus Russ Anber, the cutman for Oleksandr Usyk who owns and operates Rival Boxing Gear, and the Grant brothers, Howard and Otis, the former pro standouts who now run Grant Brothers Boxing just outside of Montreal.

Quebec’s passion for boxing isn’t limited just to boxers who are born or raised in Canada. Eye of the Tiger’s roster is a United Nations of boxing talent, featuring boxers like the Venezuelan southpaw Albert Ramirez (18-0, 15 KOs) and Osleys Iglesias (11-0, 10 KOs), a super middleweight from Cuba who will see action against former world title challenger Sena Agbeko on the Mbilli-Derevyanchenko card.

Estephan says the Quebecois fans are willing to adopt fighters from abroad, provided that they can connect with the local fans. He adds that the key has been to familiarize the fans with their boxers, from opening match boxers to main eventers, through the media and in documentaries that they produce.

“If the fighters are talented, they get behind them. Obviously it always helps if they’re local but it’s definitely not limited to that. They want to see champions, they want to see good people and they want to know their stories. Grassroots is about selling tickets one person at a time, getting them involved with us, making them truly part of the team,” said Estephan, who promotes The Ring’s no. 1 (Mbilli), no. 3 (Iglesias) and no. 6 (Erik Bazinyan) contenders at 168 pounds.

If anyone would know about assimilating into a new culture, it’s Estephan. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Estephan and his family left behind a comfortable life to relocate to Quebec in 1986 to escape the violence of the Lebanese Civil War. Estephan began to ponder a career in the business of boxing during the 2000s, after a sparring session with Montreal based heavyweight Bermane Stiverne.

Makhmudov scored a second round KO of Miljan Rovcanin in May. Photo by Vincent Ethier/Eye of the Tiger

“I should have not done that. I was getting back in shape and wanted to spar and I realized how good that guy was,” said Estephan with a laugh. He became Stiverne’s manager around 2008, and began promoting shows of his own to keep Stiverne busy before leading him to the WBC heavyweight title in 2014.

Arslanbek Makhmudov, the 6’5”, 260-pound heavyweight from Russia, is one of the Eye of the Tiger boxers who have been adopted by the Quebecois as their own. The 35-year-old Makhmudov relocated to Montreal to begin his pro career in 2017. Makhmudov said he consulted with Beterbiev, a Russian transplant who has thrived since moving to Montreal, about following his path there. Though Makhmudov said he hasn’t had the chance to learn much French yet, but his children already speak French.

“In Quebec, they love boxing to be honest. Even if you’re not Canadian or Quebecois, they love boxing. They understand boxing,” said Makhmudov (19-1, 18 KOs) in English, a language he learned after moving to North America.

Makhmudov will be in a make or break fight this Saturday, when he faces Italian puncher Guido Vianello (12-2-1, 10 KOs) in the ten round co-main event. The two had faced once before in the amateurs, in a World Series of Boxing bout in 2015, though the bout ended prematurely due to a Vianello injury.

Makhmudov is hoping that a win can help him regain the momentum he lost last December, when he was stopped in four rounds by Agit Kabayel in a fight where Makhmudov says he was plagued by a broken right hand and a short training camp that didn’t allow him to get properly conditioned.

“I know that this fight didn’t change me. It changed me but in a good way. I became more hungry, more professional and more disciplined. I want to show the whole world I am still here,” said Makhmudov.

The main ingredient for a boxing renaissance is a breakout star who connects with the greater boxing world and makes that region a destination for fight fans near and far. If one or more emerges, Quebec is primed to party like its 2010 all over again.

“I think we as a boxing community really relied a lot on TV. That’s great but you have to have the fans that are behind you, that are true hardcore fans. They become hardcore when they know the story, when they know the people, it’s not just about the boxer and whether he wins or loses, but how he got there, what motivates him, what are his weaknesses and strengths,” said Estephan.” They want champions, champions in the ring and champions out of the ring.”

Ryan Songalia has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler and The Guardian, and is part of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism Class of 2020. He can be reached at [email protected].