ORLANDO, Fla. – Thirteen months ago, Lucas Bahdi was on the verge of his first career defeat.
Bahdi was far behind on the scorecards through five rounds against fellow unbeaten lightweight Ashton “H2O” Sylve, the heavily hyped prospect who was fighting under the banner of Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP). Sylve was proving fast and slick and every bit worth the early praise his young career had been garnering.
But Bahdi kept plugging away, looking for his opening.
“He was very sharp, very quick,” Bahdi admitted to BoxingScene on Thursday at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando, Florida, where he will face Roget Gutierrez in a DAZN-streamed contest on Saturday.
“He was countering me, and I just made the adjustment,” he continued. “I punched with him. I waited, I timed him, and it was a picture-perfect shot.”
A right hand stiffened Sylve, and then a follow-up right hand/left hook combination relieved him of consciousness and dropped him face-first onto the canvas. It earned Bahdi the BoxingScene Knockout of the Year award for 2024; more significantly, it elevated his profile and set him on the road to recognition and reward.
Bahdi’s next step was a place, four months later, on a megacard at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where he secured a majority decision win over Armando Casamonica beneath Paul’s win over 58-year-old Mike Tyson. A unanimous verdict over Ryan Racaza followed in March; and should Bahdi beat Gutierrez, he will be the mandatory challenger for Gervonta Davis’ lightweight belt.
It has been an impressive ascension for a man who had to invest in his own professional career and who at one stage had two non-functional hands.
Born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Bahdi was, he said, “always an athlete, playing different sports, hockey and soccer, both at a high level. But I always wanted to fight. Boxing was just my getaway. I mean, I loved it from the first day I walked in the gym, and I ended up quitting the other sports that I loved just to focus on boxing.”
After initially planning to qualify for the Olympics, Bahdi changed direction in 2019, turning pro at the relatively late age of 25. Unable initially to procure any financial backing, “I invested into my own career. I was the manager, the promoter and the fighter all in one. I financed my whole career from the very beginning, and I wanted to fight steady. I wanted to fight every month, and I did.”
Some of those fights were in his native Canada, others in little-traveled Mexican towns such as Naucalpan and Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl.
“It was definitely pretty ghetto, seeing the changing rooms I was warming up in,” Bahdi, 19-0 (15 KOs), said with a smile. "Most of them were outside shows. It was pretty wild.”
After kicking off his career with nine wins in nine months in 2019 and 2020, his progression ground to a halt with the double blow of COVID and surgery on both hands.
“I had surgery on my left hand,” he said, “but I was still in the gym, sparring one-handed.” But soon the right hand would also need surgery, leaving him on the shelf for a total of 18 months. But at no stage, Bahdi insists, did he question whether his chosen path was worth it.
“I never had one doubt in my mind,” he said. “I was literally sitting on the couch, two broken hands. Couldn't even feed myself. I didn't second-guess it once. My mindset’s fucking crazy; I just have so much self-belief. And I know when I want something, I get it.”
That same mindset, he says, is what enabled him to defeat Sylve last July, even as he lost round after round.
“It's extremely difficult to keep focus at that point of a fight,” he said. “But that's what I'm talking about. My mindset is different, and that's what separates me from everyone else. Like I said, I get my mind on something, I'm getting it. I put everything on the line, and I was ready to give it all. I didn't give up. I listened to my coach, and my game plan was the same the whole time.”
The Sylve win was the 17th fight of Bahdi’s career, but he still didn’t have a promoter – though that was about to change. First, however, came the call to take on Casamonica on a card that, at its peak, would be watched by over 100 million households worldwide.
“That was a massive, massive opportunity,” he said. “I mean, at the time, I was an unsigned fighter, but after the Sylve fight, I had tons of different offers. I had every major promoter calling me. But deep down, I had my heart set on MVP. I just knew that they were the promoter for me. I knew everything was going to play out the way I wanted to. I just had such a good feeling, even two years prior when I saw Jake start doing this thing. He opened his promotion company, and I was like, ‘This guy is the guy.’ I knew that he would do it. And when I got that call, I was so happy.”
MVP officially signed Bahdi shortly after he defeated Casamonica – and, he says, he just signed an extension. He and his promoter have “big plans.” Meanwhile, his home life, too, is everything he could ask for, with a child just short of two years old and a baby due in December. Everything is coming together the way he wanted. But Bahdi acknowledges that “I gotta take care of business this weekend.”
Gutierrez, 29-6-1 (22 KOs), has plenty of experience, having mixed it up with the likes of Moises Flores, Zaur Abdullaev, Hector Garcia and Rene Alvarado. Bahdi is expecting a tough contest but is also ready, after years of frustration and delays, to make the most of his newfound platform and ranking.
“I'm expecting the best version of him, because this is a massive opportunity for him, as well as it is for me,” Bahdi said. “He wants to show that he belongs at the elite level again, right? And, yeah, he's got tons of experience. He's been in the ring with some amazing world-class fighters. Now it's my time to separate myself from everyone else. I have to make a statement and really show the world where I belong.”
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcast about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He presently co-hosts the “Fighter Health Podcast” with Dr. Margaret Goodman. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, including most recently Arctic Passages: Ice, Exploration, and the Battle for Power at the Top of the World, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.
