When Tammara Thibeault is on a roll, she punctuates her thoughts with English phrases she didn’t learn growing up in Shawinigan, Que.
She might say, “d’you know woh I mean?” just to make sure you know what she means.
Or she’ll finish an occasional sentence with “innit?”, short of “isn’t It?”, which our friends in England employ the way Canadians use “eh?” The speaker isn’t really asking a question. Just making an observation.
If you have lost track of the 28-year-old Thibeault since her first-round exit at the Olympic boxing tournament in Paris last summer, she hasn’t disappeared. She just moved to Sheffield, England to immerse herself in academic work where she’s pursuing her masters degree in urban design and urban planning.
Before she found urban planning, Thibeault studied linguistics, which means she’s aware of how a transatlantic move, and immersion in a new dialect, would shape her spoken English.
And boxing?
The 2023 Pan Am Games champion is still immersed in the sweet science, training daily at the Steel City gym in Sheffield as she embarks on a pro career that brings her back to Canada this week.
Friday night at the Toronto Casino Resort, Thibeault takes on Sonya Dreiling in a six-round bout on the undercard of a lightweight clash between Lucas Bahdi of Niagara Falls and Ryan James Racaza of the Philippines. For Thibeault, the bout is a showcase, a homecoming, and an overdue reunion with some other decorated Canadian amateurs, like Bahdi and Toronto’s Sara Bailey, now chasing professional success.
“I get to come home, and I’m proud to represent Canada on home soil,” said Thibeault, who is 1-0 as a professional. “I get to fight alongside old teammates. Lucas Bahdi. Sara Bailey. We all travelled together.”
Thibeault is launching her career at a time of profound change for the professional boxing industry.
WATCH | Why Thibeault turned pro:
2-time Olympian Tammara Thibeault has made the decision to become a professional boxer, and is preparing for her first pro bout on December 13th. We speak to her about the decision, what it means for her future and how her Olympic experience from Tokyo and Paris led to the decision.
Follow the money
On the men’s side, promoters and top performers have followed the money to Saudi Arabia, where Turki Alalshikh, the sport’s newest, richest power broker, has bankrolled star-studded events.
Last month Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, the super middleweight champion and the sport’s biggest pay-per-view draw, signed a four-fight deal with Riyadh Season, the Saudi cultural festival pumping its sponsorship dollars into boxing, marking another significant shift in the sport’s balance of power.
Meanwhile, some North American promoters are investing heavily in women’s boxing, raising the sport’s profile and pay scale, and benefitting several Canadian fighters.
Michigan-based Salita Promotions is a case in point.
Regardless of gender their highest-profile performer is Claressa Shields, the two-time Olympic gold medallist and undefeated pro world champ. In 2022 Shields defeated Savannah Marshall in a middleweight title bout, one of just two women’s fights in history to offer both headliners seven-figure guarantees.
But her promoter, Dmitry Salita has also matched Shields with Canadian opponents — Marie-Eve Dicaire in 2021 and Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse in last summer — and in January, Salita added Caroline Veyre of Montreal to his stable.
Another example is Most Valuable Promotions, the outfit founded in 2021 by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian, and the company behind the other multimillion-dollar women’s bout, the 2022 showdown between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor at Madison Square Gardens. They signed Thibeault to a promotional contract after the Paris Olympics, and they’re staging Friday’s fight card, in collaboration with Ajax-based United Promotions.
Bidarian, who grew up in Toronto, says the company’s boxing braintrust identified Thibeault as a future star. Her amateur accolades signaled a successful pro career, and her outside-the-ring interests hint at crossover appeal.
“The ideal world is, you have the skills, and you have the skill set to sell the skills,” Bidarian said. “A perfect world is, you have those, and you’re an unbelievably accomplished individual outside the ring. That’s what Tamm is. That’s what has me so excited.”
Focus on women’s boxing
Biarian says MVP’s focus on women’s boxing stems from his own time as an executive at the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which coincided with Ronda Rousey’s run as the top-selling, highest-earning athlete in the organization. So while closing the pay gap between men’s and women’s stars is one of MVP’s goals, the promotion is also working to normalize both sets of athletes using the same rules.
In mixed martial arts, men and women both fight five-minute rounds. But where rules mandate three-minute rounds for men’s boxers, women generally contest two-minute rounds. In 2023 MVP introduced three-minute rounds for women’s bouts, starting with Serrano’s title defense against Danila Ramos.
“This is history,” Serrano told ESPN afterward. “We made history together and I’m just excited to see the future of women’s boxing.”
MVP’s immediate plans for Thibeault include three-minute rounds – the round length employed for her pro debut, a four-round decision over fellow Canadian Natasha Spence. Medium term, they intend to feature her on the undercard of their higher-profile events, to increase her visibility.
But long term, the lack of a middle class among women’s boxers complicates the process of finding appropriate opponents.
Thibeault ranked 6th
Thibeault, for example, is the sixth-ranked middleweight in the world, according to Boxrec, the boxing stats database. Her opponent, Dreiling, is rated number 17, but the entire weight class includes just 40 fighters worldwide.
In contrast, the men’s middleweight division includes 1,994 registered pros. A matchup between the sixth and 17th-ranked men’s fighters is a high-stakes showdown with world title implications. On the women’s side it’s an undercard bout between Thibeault, a prospect with a single pro fight to her credit, and Dreiling, who has a 5-7 record and a four-fight losing streak.
That lack of depth helps explain why Shields has won world titles in five weight classes. She needs to move between categories to find a challenge.
But that set up also puts talented prospects like Thibeault in a difficult position: fatten your record against overmatched challengers, head straight into a title fight without appropriate seasoning, or find a way to lure other contenders into about.
“The onus on us is to put Tamm in positions where opponents are willing to take that risk,” Bidarian said.
And Thibeault’s main challenge these days?
Managing her time and energy to give both her education and her boxing career the effort they deserve. Thibeault says she uses a spreadsheet to help her allocate hours to each pursuit, but she has also learned that balance also means prioritizing one over the other for stretches.
Right now, she says boxing is job one.
But that’ll change.
“Sometimes you’ve gotta put boxing first,” Thibeault said. “Once this fight is over I’m going to give it a good push for my masters, and put education first until the next opportunity.”
