No one was surprised to see Wilkens Mathieu looking so comfortable and brilliant at the casino press conference yesterday.
“Nobody” is obviously his mother Marie-Josée, his producer, his two brothers, his trainer Mike Moffa and Camille Estephan, the company’s president.
“Nobody” could have been old pirate Jeff Fillion, who welcomed the tall 18-year-old to his show last Friday, or Radio X’s Dany Houle and Josey Arsenault, who greeted him at the studio on Grande Allée.
You invite him over for ten minutes and when he takes off the headphones after half an hour, you want more.
THE THREE BROTHERS
They are three brothers. Lexson, a very handsome candidate who broke his promoter’s heart by going to Thailand for a year during the pandemic, grew his hair to his shoulders and quickly understood how cryptocurrencies work. When the rainy season ended, Lexson was a millionaire and older. And the taste for boxing, which he trained to experience what it felt like to step into a ring and face a tough opponent, had passed on to him. Nine fights, nine wins. 25 rounds in total. His nickname was The Next. That shows how talented he was.
The third brother, Kensley Mathieu, could have gone pro too. But he went to his brother in Thailand… and he too understood how cryptocurrencies work.
On Friday, they accompanied their little brother, young and handsome in their business suits, wherever he went. Except that the pirate was defeated when Wilkens explained that he quickly understood that the school had prepared young people to be good employees and that thanks to his passion for boxing he would have every chance at another career if the… The time was ripe.
RESTORE THE TASTE OF LIFE
Mike Moffa is an experienced boxing trainer. He coached national players like Diery Jean, Ariane Fortin and Ghislain Maduma. And he tells it with great emotion and tears in his eyes. “Everything went wrong in my personal life, everything was black. And it was this tall, intelligent and sensitive boy who got me back into boxing. And the taste of life. I tried to lead him, to train him, but he was already the head of a beautiful young man,” says Moffa in his broken Italian French. So sweet.
“Our father was a world karate champion. We have good genes. Through the martial arts we were able to achieve fluency in boxing,” explains Wilkens.
And when he tells how his mother, Marie-Josée, did the rest of the work, it’s touching and moving. At the age of thirty, Marie-Josée Jobidon, a single mother of three young boys, returned to university and studied law. He then passed the bar exam. Today, Me Jobidon, a defense attorney, is a very feared adversary before a judge.
It is obvious that she pushed her boys to study for a long time. But they exude so much confidence in life that they smile when they remember Mom’s advice. “I moved into an apartment in Montreal when I was 15. Boxing was my plan A. I never had a plan B. My passion is fishing, which I do with my grandfather in Shawinigan. But I’m an avid boxer,” says Wilkens.
And his brothers, constant protectors, watch over his interests.
IN THE CASINO AND IN THE VIDEOTRON CENTER
Wilkens Mathieu will fight at the Casino de Montreal on June 1st. But he’s even more excited for the August 19 meeting at the Videotron Center in the fight between Artur Beterbiev and Callum Smith. “I’m a guy from Quebec. The Videotron Center. Wow!” he said smiling.
He’s not the only one. By 4 p.m. yesterday, 2,980 tickets had been sold. The transaction is complete and already over $350,000 in cash. We added 120 tickets for the hall that was already sold out. And we are currently reviewing a new configuration for the Videotron Center.
Without the ring changing its place to protect those who have already bought their tickets.
A nice problem.
