It would be enough for any boxing fan to watch or re-watch the eighth round match between Christian Mbilli and Carlos Gongora, held at the Casino de Montreal on Thursday night, to fall in love with Eye of the Tiger Management’s protégé.
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It is a test of courage that Mbilli (24-0, 20 KOs) gave so much that the Frenchman of Cameroonian origin could well be adorned with the nickname around his home country’s football team: “irresistible lion”.
“In this eighth round, without lying to you, I saw my work go by, I saw my hours of suffering in training, I saw my goals and I said to myself: ‘If you don’t survive this round, you have no business there’ , commented Mbilli after his spectacular victory by unanimous decision of the judges (99-91, 98-92, 97-93) against Gongora So I went to get my balls and I told myself that he wouldn’t hurt me and that I’m more dangerous than him It was really psychological work.
“Sure he hurt me physically but mentally I was there,” Mbilli added. I then managed to turn that lap in my favour. When you, like me, dedicate your life to your professional boxing career, there is no room for error. There was only one way, that of victory. And that’s it.”
Strongly shaken, Mbilli defended herself against her opponent’s attacks, while the spectators were at the end of their seats, if not actually standing.
Thanks to its cardiovascular capacity!
While many fans in the casino held their breath, manager Marc Ramsay wasn’t particularly surprised by Mbilli’s reaction to the storm.
“We already knew in his team that he had this courage within himself. He had already demonstrated this in amateur boxing, then in high school in training. Now he’s shown it to fans, Ramsay said. What saved him, besides his courage, was his cardiovascular capacity. He didn’t even need a minute rest between laps to come back. In the same lap he got hurt, he was able to turn it around.”
Without being stunned, the manager agrees that he would have come very close to taking Mbilli to his knees in the eighth round. With Samuel Décarie-Drolet, the other Eckmann, we came close to sending him such clues.
“We came close to telling him that,” Ramsay said. He was a little disoriented for a good minute. He was asked to hold on, but he wasn’t good at it and kept using uppercuts. The key to all of this is that he stayed calm.”
hard lessons
Promoter Camille Estephan, now in a better position to negotiate a date between Mbilli and super middleweight Canelo Alvarez, knew fighting Gorgora was risky.
“We want to put on an excellent show and challenge our boxers,” he admitted to the author of these lines earlier this week. It’s also a way to develop them. This strategy has come to an end. We want to take them to the world championships when they’ve had really tough lessons, so that they win in the end and even better, so that they remain world champions.
“It’s obvious that this is the time when I’ve had to stretch my resources the most since the beginning of my career,” the talkative boxer concluded. But that’s part of boxing. When it’s hard you have to look deep within yourself, you have to look for determination. I think that’s what makes the difference between an ordinary boxer and a champion. If I say that I want to be world champion, I proved it today (Thursday): I will be world champion.
Do you have the courage to leave France?
Even before boxer Christian Mbilli showed his mettle in the ring at the Casino de Montréal on Thursday night, things changed when he decided to leave France for Canada to continue his boxing career.
“I admire any kind of courage,” Mbilli remarked himself after his stunning win over Carlos Gongora on Thursday night. There are courageous people in everyday life… I’m generally burning for courage, be it in politics or with those athletes who don’t have easy paths, but recover. I think I showed today that I’m pretty brave. It was not for nothing that I immigrated here to Canada and left my family in France.
“He’s an Olympic athlete who has chosen to exile from France for his career,” boasted promoter Camille Estephan earlier this week. In the short term it would have been easier and possibly more profitable for Christian to stay there, with the local sponsors, but he was thinking long term and it’s now paying off for him.
Every coach’s dream
In Canada, his trainer Marc Ramsay couldn’t be happier to count on Mbilli, who is already a WBC Continental Americas and WBA International champion.
“It’s every coach’s dream to work with someone like Christian,” he said. Aside from his talent, all the decisions he makes in his life are related to his career. His hours of sleep, his diet, injury prevention, even his contacts outside the ring, nothing is left to chance. Of course he has a social life, he’s not a monk either, but when it’s time to train he puts his full focus on his training.