MONTREAL – After scoring his second knockdown of the fifth round, Logan Clouthier was feeling pretty good about his chances.
Clouthier, who entered last Thursday’s fight at Casino de Montreal as an unbeaten relative unknown, danced a couple steps on his way to a neutral corner after another left hook to the body left Thomas Chabot writhing in pain on the canvas. It was a powerful shot set up by Clouthier “picking the pocket,” throwing a diversionary uppercut to hide his slip to the left, where the hook snuck in behind the Quebecois fighter’s right elbow.
Clouthier expected to be dancing all the way back to the dressing room afterwards.
“I thought the second one was the one – I did, honestly,” Clouthier said. “I thought he was done and celebrated a little early there. But the guy's tough as hell.”
Chabot beat the count, and even clocked Clouthier with a few hard shots of his own. But Clouthier’s early success against the aggressive southpaw Chabot – particularly with counterpunching – carried him to the unanimous decision victory over the previous unbeaten fighter in their eight-round junior lightweight fight. It was the culmination of a hard training camp that included a trip down to Los Angeles, where Clouthier found sparring against fighters like Justin Viloria, Emmanuel Pacquiao Jnr and Tayden Beltran.
The victory was a strong introduction to the national stage for the 30-year-old Clouthier, who was born in Saskatchewan but now makes his home in Vancouver. Known as “The Toon Town Terror,” as a hat tip to his roots in Saskatoon, Clouthier says it was soccer, not boxing, that was his first sport of choice. It wasn’t until he started to doubt his place in team sports that boxing became a possibility.
“I got kicked off the team one time for flipping off a ref,” admits Clouthier, whose pro record is now 7-0 (4 KOs). “I fell in love with [boxing] because if you fuck up, that's on you. So you pay the price. If you work hard, you get the reward. If you don't work hard, you get punched around in there. I don't want to get punched around, so I always work hard.”
For Clouthier, boxing has been an on-again, off-again affair in his life. He picked up the sport as a teenager, competing from age 15 until 18 as an amateur, before stepping away from the ring.
“I had to quit for nine years, had some stuff happen in life,” said Clouthier, of his decision to leave boxing. At age 18, Clouthier began working on an exploration rig in the Yukon, a remote territory in western Canada that borders Alaska.
Clouthier worked at a small camp outside of Whitehorse which can only be accessed by a small plane. There, he drilled for gold and coal, sometimes even uranium, working 4-6 weeks at a time until he was about 25.
"Rough labor work in the shitty cold," he describes it as. Afterwards, Clouthier went to culinary school, graduating from Kelowna College in British Columbia. Clouthier says he wants to open a food truck after his fight career. He's unsure what kind of food he'll serve but he already has a name picked out - Fat Richard's, named after his father's bulldog.
He returned to boxing in 2021 and had another 20 amateur fights, traveling to places like London and Sweden to compete and get experience. After about 75 amateur fights, Clouthier decided it was time to turn professional.
To make that transition, he linked up with Jonathan Quinit, a popular local trainer whose own amateur resume includes two national titles and a bronze at the 2009 Francophone Games in Lebanon. Clouthier had been training in Kelowna and would make the four-hour trip to Vancouver to spar at Quinit's gym on the weekends. After discussing his future plans, Clouthier moved down to Vancouver a month later.
“He was making a name for himself locally in his return to the amateurs with an impressive streak of 20-plus wins, so I was familiar with him and his skill,” said Quinit, who trains Clouthier alongside Dave Habib and Stephen Bontoyan.
“Logan’s the kind of athlete every coach wants to work with – focused, disciplined and constantly evolving. He’s got that happy-go-lucky confidence, the kind that keeps things light in the gym but switches on when it’s time to work.”
Since then, it has been smooth sailing for Clouthier, who remains a promotional and managerial free agent. His last two victories have both come against undefeated fighters, including Theothilus Owusu (then 7-0-1) by unanimous decision in March and now Chabot.
Clouthier says that, although his home province of British Columbia isn’t known for boxing as much as Quebec – where Chabot’s promoter Eye of the Tiger Management is based – there are a few respectable pros making noise there, such as junior welterweight Eric Basran, 8-1 (3 KOs), and female minimumweight Nyousha Nakhjiri, 4-0 (2 KOs).
Despite the Chabot fight being at 130 pounds, and his having fought as high as 135 pounds, Clouthier says he thinks a step down in weight isn’t out of the cards, as he wants to see how strong he would feel as a featherweight. Quinit thinks another call from Montreal is coming.
“I can see another call from Eye of the Tiger coming soon, whether it’s a rematch or one of their other fighters,” said Quinit. “I’m expecting another strong eight-rounder next, and by 2026, we’ll be ready to step into a 10-round fight.”
Clouthier says he’s ready to be thrown in tough again.
“Just keep fighting and putting myself higher up in the rankings,” Clouthier said. “It's hard without a big amateur background, but I know I'm a game opponent. I'm game for any of these guys. So anyone at 126 or 130, I'd love the opportunity to be on the big stage again.”
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.