THE CHOSEN ONE
province would love. “I’ve always been in uncomfortable situations. That’s my life,” says Mbilli. “I have a big responsibility. I’m the first child of my mother, and to be the first is a big responsibility for the family. And that’s the thing: I always need to be focused. My family is counting on me. I have always been seen as the chosen one of the family. I cannot make mistakes.” That’s why, even the week of a fight postponement and the day of a flight to Dubai, where he’ll manage some real estate interests, there’s a training session – the same intensity as ever. As Mbilli tapes his hands and prepares for the day’s session, he looks through the back office window toward what can best be described as a carousel of punching bags, similar to contraptions used by the Cuban national amateur team. The octagonal structure encases an uppercut bag, providing just enough space on the interior to throw uppercuts and short hooks. Anything else and one would hit their arms on the steel beams. On the outside, fighters must be in constant motion chasing down the moving bags. On the inside, they’re forced into close quarters. A demonic invention built to create pressure fighters. “That’s where it came from,” says Mbilli (29-0-1, 24 KOs) with a smile, referring to the hyper aggression and inside fighting proficiency that he’s shown the ability to sustain over the distance. Mbilli is the only one in the gym, yet somehow at the end of a 90-minute session his sweat is visible on eight different heavy bags. He is constantly moving from target to target, dropping the occasional downward-arcing left hook or sweeping overhand right, fight- ending knockout shots like crashing cymbals in between the incessant percussion of volume punches. There is, once again, no reason for Mbilli to be working this hard on this day. He’s been afforded an extra month’s training, and by all accounts, his opponent is out watching Mexico in the World Cup that day. Despite
both France and Canada being in the tournament at that point and his own soccer background, Mbilli hasn’t been watching whatsoever. As with everything in his life, this camp has been about quiet persistence in preparation, but relentless aggression in execution. “It comes from my mom, comes from life, comes from my experience. I was born in Cameroon and moved to France, after that Montreal, now Dubai and France. I think I have always been a very lucky person. I’m very, very lucky. I think that I have a lucky star in the sky. It’s always been written in the stars,” says Mbilli of his work ethic, sticking to his customary humbleness bordering on self-deprecation. The same can be heard when he describes his university business degree, the one that’s allowed him to own multiple properties in multiple countries, as “something that sounds like a big deal but isn’t.” It’s a personality that is very familiar to his promoter, Camille Estephan, who has seen Mbilli maintain his laser focus even in moments that called for celebration, such as the one that serves as the literal poster for many of his Eye of the Tiger promotional events. “Remember the fight against Nadjib Mohammedi? To me, it was the knockout of the year. Mohammedi was very arrogant. He’s like, ‘You’re not Kovalev,’ this and that; he was discrediting Christian. And Mbilli is usually quite respectful of his opponents. He’s a competitor, he’s a fighter, but he’s not a trash-talk guy. So when he knocks him out, he steps over him and looks down at him. It’s like my favorite picture in boxing, ever,” recalls Estephan. “What’s really interesting is after the fight, everybody wants to celebrate, everybody wants to party. People are telling him, ‘Hey, let’s go.’ He lives in Old Montreal in a very posh area where there’s a lot of partying going on, a lot of nice places to visit, so people are going out there, like, ‘Come, Christian, come on!’ The next thing you know, he goes home, eats an apple, goes to bed, and the next morning he’s out running.” Estephan has the same unwavering
belief in Mbilli that his fighter has in himself, and has since the day they first sat down for a meal around 2020. Mbilli had been fighting in Quebec under promoter Yvon Michel, but had become available and wanted to meet. At that time, his trainer, Marc Ramsay, was not yet a part of the Eye of the Tiger Management team but was close with Estephan through his work with various fighters on the roster. As they broke bread for the first time, Mbilli recounted his life’s story and his relationship with his mother. “I’m like, ‘Fuck that, man. I don’t care what the guy’s going to ask. As long as it’s reasonable, I’m going to give it to him.’ There’s no negotiation. We did the deal in five minutes after that, because he’s a great guy,” said Estephan. The 2022 Mohammedi knockout has been played in every highlight reel, every promotional piece ever made on Mbilli since then. Not long after it, Mbilli gave an interview in which he declared “the goal is to fight Canelo. I want Canelo.” That audio clip has been a part of the broadcast introduction for Eye of the Tiger broadcasts for the past several years. To many, it would have sounded like an audacious maneuver, centering one’s entire existence on not just winning a world title but landing a fight against a singular superstar fighter. The number of variables that stood in the way of it happening over the last four years span a spectrum between Mbilli himself falling short and Canelo’s drift toward the business side of boxing, with many reasons in between. Mbilli’s KO of Mohammedi advanced him from No. 8 to No. 7 in The Ring’s super middleweight rankings, but he was still unknown outside of Montreal. Alvarez, who earned The Ring 2021 Fighter of the Year award for unifying all of the 168-pound belts, was only interested in two things in 2022: making history and lots of money. Mbilli, still raw and untested over the distance at the time, presented neither to the Mexican superstar, who was outpointed by future undisputed light heavyweight champ Dmitry Bivol but
Mbilli on his way to a 10-round decision over Vaughn Alexander.
rebounded with a rubber-match decision over archrival and future Hall of Famer Gennadiy Golovkin that year. But in a game of patience and persistence, few are as equipped in and out of the ring as Mbilli. While Alvarez’s title reign became more about business than sport over the next three years – as he racked up defenses against John Ryder, Jermell Charlo, Jaime Munguia and Edgar Berlanga – Mbilli continued to rack up victories and much-needed experience. Mbilli scored hard-fought 10-round decisions over dangerous fringe contender Carlos Gongora in 2023 and Sergiy Derevyanchenko in 2024 (despite a late rally from the rugged former title challenger, who fought through a biceps injury suffered in the fourth). The quality rounds prepared Mbilli for a scintillating 10-round draw with unbeaten Lester Martinez on the undercard of the Alvarez-Terence Crawford showdown last September.
Mbilli, who entered the Martinez bout with the interim WBC title (won with a first-round stoppage of Maciej Sulecki three months earlier), was elevated to “full champion status” after the sanctioning body stripped soon-to-retire Crawford. It’s not the way Mbilli wanted to achieve his first world title, but the green belt helped him land his long sought- after shot at Alvarez. “I was confident because we always earned everything. We were never given anything. We had to earn it,” said Estephan. “The key is that Christian himself knows what he’s worth, and that goes a long way. His confidence is not a shallow confidence based on what he’s going to do in the future. His confidence is based on what he’s been through all his life and what he’s built as character, as skills, as abilities. I got along with him quite a bit because we think exactly the same way. Like we want to earn everything. We never got no freebies. I
come from the Bronx of Beirut, an area called Ain El Remmaneh, where the war started. It was a fight for life every day. He had, you know, a very difficult upbringing in Africa. We both had to think, ‘OK, what are we gonna eat?’ Many things have changed in the life of Mbilli since his childhood, but many things have not. His clothes are nicer, his car is faster, the place he lays his head down at night much cozier. But he is still a man of many places, a self-motivated, relentless worker with a dream – the big dream – that is within reach but not yet in his grasp. After the day’s session wraps up, Mbilli slides his bare feet into his Gucci loafers, grabs an apple for the ride to the airport, and gets ready to head to another country by himself.
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