Leila Beaudoin of Levis, Quebec, Canada, was set to face three-belt titleholder Alycia Baumgardner in the co-feature of the scheduled Jake Paul-Gervonta Davis card before the main event was called off Monday. Thankfully, the fight is still likely to go ahead.
“It is not a canceled fight,” said Samuel Decarie-Drolet, Beaudoin’s trainer. “They just moved it.”
Decarie-Drolet has since given Beaudoin, 13-1 (2 KOs), the rest of the week off. They will return to training next week with hopes of a fight before the end of the year. Decarie-Drolet admitted Beaudoin was a bit ahead of schedule in her training camp for the 31-year-old Baumgardner, 16-1 (7 KOs).
“We did 10 rounds with three different sparring partners, both male and female,” Decarie-Drolet said. “She pushed hard, and she was ready. But at the same time, what she learned in that training camp is not lost.”
For Decarie-Drolet, the delay only adds extra time to prepare. Most of the 29-year-old Beaudoin’s career to this point was built on hard work and balance – balance not just in the ring but also in her work careers.
“What people don’t know is that almost all the time Leila was boxing as a pro, she was studying at the same time,” Decarie-Drolet said. “Now she is a nurse.”
Beaudoin graduated in May 2024. She has had only two full camps in which she wasn’t balancing work, school and the gym.
“People, when they would see Leila fight, would see a decent fighter with decent abilities, but nothing so special,” Decarie-Drolet said. “That nothing so special was because she was working full time, she was studying full time and she was boxing full time. When you do three things at the same time, you can’t do it as well as if you focused on just one thing.”
Beaudoin's last fight was a sixth-round technical stoppage win over Elhem Mekhaled in June. DeCarie-Drolet believes that Baumgardner is not overlooking Beaudoin.
“I know she is studying and she takes Leila seriously,” Decarie-Drolet said. “Leila is there to cause a surprise, but the surprise won’t be because Baumgardner underestimated Leila. It is because Leila kicked her own ass in her training camp and put all her eggs in the same basket.”
Lucas Ketelle is the author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @BigDogLukie.
