QUEBEC CITY — The crowd was red-hot for the 12th round of the WBO bantamweight title fight in January between Jason Moloney and Saul Sanchez. The average fan at the Videotron Centre in Quebec City might have been surprised to learn that neither fighter was from Quebec, let alone Canada, but when passionate boxing fans come together to watch good fights, the atmosphere is stiff to beat in any sport.

The crowd wasn’t incensed at the first televised fight.

More than 10,000 fans gathered in the arena that night, and the main fight was the delicate heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev vs. Callum Smith. When the fights started at 6:00 PM, more than 4,000 people were already in the arena. Usually, at American events, most of the audience shows up just before the main event.

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

As the scene begins to heat up again, some are hoping that Quebec boxing will experience another golden era. A major catalyst in the recent surge in excitement surrounding the Quebec boxing scene is Eye of the Tiger Management, the Montreal-based company that will co-promote Saturday’s event at the Videotron Centre with Top Rank, and Christian Mbilli will headline the evening, fighting perennial contender Sergiy Derevyanchenko in the main event broadcast on ESPN/ESPN+.

Camille Estephan, who founded Eye of the Tiger in 2008, says the event will be their seventh this year to be broadcast live on ESPN or ESPN+. Although Eye of the Tiger acquired longtime Quebec promotional powerhouse Interbox in 2016, it didn’t immediately gain the successful times the company enjoyed, though he says that thanks to constant promotion, a novel generation of fans has started to tune in.

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

“We need a world champion and if one of them can do it, we’re there.”

Estephan is hoping Mbilli (27-0, 23 knockouts) can lead the charge. The 29-year-old super middleweight contender, who was born in Cameroon and raised in France, represented France at the 2016 Olympics and became a top contender at 168 pounds in front of local fans, fighting 15 times in Canada.

Derevyanchenko (15-5, 10 KOs) represents the biggest test of his newborn career by far. The 38-year-old Brooklyn-based Ukrainian has pushed Jaime Munguia, Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Jacobs to their limits and could earn decisions in some of those fights. The winner could prove to be a compelling challenger to unified super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who remains the most bankable boxer to face today.

The preliminary card will feature several local fighters from their roster, including Wilkens Mathieu (9-0, 6 KOs), a 19-year-old super middleweight who was born and raised in Quebec City, as well as Thomas Chabot (10-0, 8 KOs) from nearby Thetford Mines, and Leila Beaudoin (11-1, 1 KO), a junior lightweight from the more northern city of Riviere-du-Loup, who will face Bolivian Lizbeth Crespo (15-7, 4 KOs) for the WBO international belt in a ten-round fight.

Chabot, 24, who represented Canada in international tournaments as an amateur, believes the local scene will once again ignite like it did under Bute, a fellow left-hander Chabot admired as a kid, who he believes has the kind of invigorating style that will support usher in those days.

“I definitely think Quebec will go back to where it was. We have a lot of candidates who will get there, like Christian Mbilli, who is the number one contender in the world [with the WBC]so I expect more exposure from Quebec fighters on the international stage. We also have a lot of newborn prospects, like Wilkens Mathieu, who have a lot of potential, and me. I bring the same kind of emotion as Arturo Gatti, giving everything in the ring. That’s what makes boxing so popular and I believe I represent that too,” Chabot said.

Thomas Chabot stands over Armando Ramirez in his second-round TKO victory in 2022. Photo: Vincent Ethier/EOTTM©2022

It’s not just the professional scene that’s on the rise in Quebec. After a lull in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic closures, the number of registered amateur boxers in Quebec has rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels. According to statistics provided to The Ring by Boxing Quebec, which oversees amateur boxing in the province, there were 5,108 registered boxers in 2024, up from 4,125 in 2023 and slightly down from the 5,454 who boxed in 2019. Those boxers represented 132 different clubs, the highest number of registered gyms in a decade of data sharing.

Two of the boxers who represented Canada at the Paris Olympics, Wyatt Sanford and Tammara Thibeault, live in Quebec. Sanford won the country’s first boxing medal – a bronze in the men’s 63.5 kg division – in 28 years.

The region also has no shortage of world-class boxing coaches, including Marc Ramsay, who trains Montreal-based Russian Artur Beterbiev, as well as Russ Anber, cutman Oleksandr Usyk, owner and operator of Rival Boxing Gear, and the Grant brothers, Howard and Otis, former top pros who now run Grant Brothers Boxing just outside Montreal.

Quebec’s passion for boxing isn’t confined to boxers born or raised in Canada. The Eye of the Tiger roster is a United Nations of boxing talent, and includes boxers like Venezuelan left-hander Albert Ramirez (18-0, 15 KOs) and Osleys Iglesias (11-0, 10 KOs), a super middleweight from Cuba who will face former world title challenger Sena Agbeko at Mbilli-Derevyanchenko.

Estephan says Quebec fans are willing to accept fighters from abroad, provided they can connect with local fans. He adds that the key has been to introduce fans to the boxers, from the opening boxers to the main participants, through the media and in the documentaries they produce.

“If the fighters are talented, they support them. Of course, it always helps if they’re local, but it’s not confined to that. They want to see the champions, they want to see the good guys and they want to hear their stories. Grassroots is about selling tickets one person at a time, getting them involved, making them a real part of the team,” said Estephan, who promotes The Ring’s No. 1 contenders (Mbilli), No. 3 contenders (Iglesias) and No. 6 contenders (Erik Bazinyan) at 168 pounds.

If anyone knows how to assimilate into a novel culture, it’s Estephan. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Estephan and his family left a comfortable life to move to Quebec in 1986 to escape the violence of the Lebanese civil war. Estephan began considering a career in boxing in the 2000s after a sparring session with Montreal-based weightlifter Bermane Stiverne.

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

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

Arslanbek Makhmudov, a 6’5”, 260-pound heavyweight from Russia, is one of the Eye of the Tiger boxers who have been embraced by Quebecers. Makhmudov, 35, moved to Montreal to pursue his professional career in 2017. Makhmudov said he consulted with Beterbiev, a Russian transplant who flourished after moving to Montreal, about following in his footsteps there. Although Makhmudov said he hasn’t had a chance to learn much French yet, his children already speak it.

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

Makhmudov will have a pivotal fight this Saturday when he faces Italian puncher Guido Vianello (12-2-1, 10 KOs) in a ten-round co-main event. The two previously faced off in the amateurs, in a World Series of Boxing bout in 2015, but the fight ended prematurely due to an injury to Vianello.

Makhmudov is hoping the victory will support him regain the momentum he lost last December when he was stopped in the fourth round by Agit Kabayel in a fight in which Makhmudov says he was plagued by a broken right hand and a compact training camp that kept him from getting into proper shape.

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

A key ingredient in a boxing renaissance is a star who connects with the larger boxing world and makes the region a destination for fight fans near and far. If one or more of those figures emerge, Quebec is poised to celebrate like it was 2010 again.

“I think we as a boxing community have really relied on television. That’s great, but you have to have fans who are behind you, who are true die-hard fans. They become die-hards 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 his weaknesses are, what his strengths are,” Estephan said. They want champions, champions in the ring and champions outside the ring.