Text message from Yvon Michel dated July 11, 2020: “Good morning Réjean, that is quite an article you have published. It’s brilliant and very well done! Thank you very much ” :
” Texts: 2020: (XXX)’s article is a real mess. I told them Adonis needs to talk to you! You have conducted dozens of interviews with Adonis and could have understood him well and asked the right questions because you know him well. (XXX) is certainly a good journalist, but I don’t think he’s written a single article about him in his entire career! He just didn’t have the right tags to write a good article like you could!!! »
Text of November 23, 2019: “Your lyrics are great, thank you! »
Text of January 31, 2019: “Your article from this morning is still very nice and very timely! I’m glad you’re here, you and Mathieu”.
Text of October 23, 2021: “Hello Reian
Thanks for your coverage all week!!
Columnists of your race will not be made anymore!! »
Text of July 25, 2022: “Really hot what you wrote. And with all the pictures! »
Okay, I’ll stop, the yard is overflowing. i am blushing But there are dozens of pages of these text messages just for the last few years. For a series of chronicles about Adonis Stevenson, before and after his terrible accident, about Eleider Alvarez, Oscar Rivas, Marie-Ève Dicaire, even if I noticed that some of his fights didn’t come up, Kim Clavel and the others.
You’ll understand that I’m a little confused when the promoter Yvon Michel empties his bile by screaming (in writing!!!) that I’ve been trying to destroy him and his company for all these years. But actually I expected it. At least two of my sisters had had this type of reaction.
I conclude that if you write that Yvon Michel is good you are good, you are dirty, and a crab if you write that Yvon Michel is less good.
COLOMBIAN RIVAS AND ALVAREZ
In fact, it was a column about Oscar Rivas and also about Eleider Alvarez that ignited the promoter’s ire.
I was writing a column when I found out that Rivas (injured in the eye) couldn’t fight in Verona on January 14 because it broke my heart.
He has been world champion since October 22, 2021 without ever having had a chance to defend his title. To support two families without any significant inflow of money. Eleider Alvarez is in such a precarious position. I wrote that the two men had their share of responsibilities, that their manager had some too, and that the promoter must be among those who contributed to this state of affairs.
I wrote after conducting dozens of conversations and interviews with Rivas, Alvarez, and all of their related sources and industry stakeholders. Among them Stéphane Lépine and Yvon Michel. The promoter, using old tactics, makes big spars and complains. But nobody but him contradicted the portrait I drew.
All of this work serves to chronicle the issues that I find interesting for readers.
AND THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
We know each other well, the promoter and the columnist. We spent hours and hours, days and weeks on motorcycles across the United States and Canada. Mostly with his friend Marcel Aubut and the other members of the group.
In order to reach me, he attacks my wife Julie Bertrand. By complaining that I have a conflict of interest.
We’ll make that clear. Julie is a cancer survivor. Actually two cancers of the breast and the lymph nodes. She underwent a complete removal of her left breast and 12 lymph nodes and a full suite of treatments for side effects.
She didn’t monetize her cancer. She and Danielle Ceccini spent hours and hours guiding and assisting me in writing Lance et Compte, the great duel that left Suzie Lambert diagnosed with breast cancer. Generous.
She was blessed to have an exceptional surgeon, Dr. Alain Gagnon, performed a Dieppe reconstruction of her breast. I thank him every night.
This fiery survivor loves the life she nearly lost. She loves life, boxing and the athletes who suffer so much in this violent sport.
When Camille Estephan founded Punching Grace with his daughter Emmanuelle, he offered Julie the opportunity to produce documentaries. She had seen me in action and learned as I worked.
With Simon René and Marc Danis, who had a distinguished career after their adventure with Punching Grace, she produced 37 column shows and around twenty documentaries, eleven of which were shown on TVA Sports. Simon and Marc went to Edmonton, Victoria, London, Manchester, Las Vegas or Verona. A fabulous trip that no one will ever forget. I was the bartender at the large table in the dining room on Sunday afternoon. Twenty documentary pre-productions also resulted in twenty bottles of Bordeaux 2005, which I appreciated very much.
Julie Bertrand requested that her compensation be paid in cash and in shares of the network. She believed it. There was 20 percent.
Then she worried about relapse and nuclear medicine tests forced her to slow down.
Over the years I have received thank you SMS in addition to congratulatory SMS. And I did my job as a columnist.
AND KIM CLAVEL
It’s small, the world of boxing in Quebec. Two days before commenting live on RDS on the fight of his former protégé Artur Beterbiev (who had left him for Top Rank), Yvon Michel had attempted to cancel that fight with a restraining order. Additionally, the regular analyst at Punching Grace was none other than Yvon Michel’s partner, Bernard Barré.
I have no conflict of interest. But in order not to flank anyone and wash it whiter than white, I asked my spectacular Julie if she would be willing to part with her stock package. It breaks her heart, but she agreed. That will happen in the next few days as she accompanies me to London to fight Artur Beterbiev, the sport’s most neglected Montrealer.
But no one can take away her right to life and she will finish a great documentary about Makhmudov (from Eye of the Tiger) for TVA Sports before she leaves.
Yesterday she found out that she would have to undergo another radiation treatment.
Finally, I would like to wish Kim Clavel a great win. It will be good for them, for GYM and for the boxers hoping to pursue their sport.
But I want it for another reason. Since it’s the morning of intimacy, I’m the mentor, not to mention a volunteer director, of the Raconte Moi book collection for young people. Mathias Brunet has already written Marie-Ève Dicaire’s biography, which I commissioned, and Katherine Harvey-Pinard, a brilliant young journalist, will turn in her manuscript on Monday morning after writing a final chapter for Kim Clavel’s biography. Both are with GYM.
The book gets a lot better with a winning ending.
Thank you for your long and patient attention.
