Article content

Justin Trudeau slipped through the tricolour ropes and climbed into the ring as an underdog. He stood in the ballroom of an east Ottawa hotel, five kilometres from Parliament Hill and 12 months out from his election as Liberal Party leader. He pursed his lips as a cornerman kneaded his shoulders and the announcer strung out his famous last name. He wore red.

The man in blue was four inches shorter than Trudeau. His feet were slower and his wingspan, crucially, was not as long. But he was a black belt in karate and once served in the Canadian Naval Reserve, and he didn’t think Trudeau could take a punch. The prevailing wisdom said he was a 3-1 favourite.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or The fight: How Justin Trudeau outclassed Patrick Brazeau five years ago in a boxing match for the ages Back to video

Trudeau, the Member of Parliament for Montreal’s Papineau riding, and Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau were boxing for charity that night, March 31, 2012. To that end, their participation in the fifth annual Fight for the Cure was noble: the event raised more than $200,000 for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation.

But the protagonists’ motives were not entirely pure, and the stakes, accordingly, were severe. The loser would have his long hair trimmed in a House of Commons foyer the first Monday back at work. They’d have to wear a hockey jersey with the opposing party’s logo for a week. And their defeat would be remembered for years, even after the demise of Sun News Network, the right-leaning broadcaster that televised the bout across Canada.

To mark the fifth anniversary of Trudeau’s third-round win by TKO, Postmedia enlisted the expertise of Armand Teodorescu, the head coach of Atlas Boxing Club in north Toronto. Teodorescu’s father, Adrian, coached Canadian boxers Lennox Lewis and Egerton Marcus to Olympic medals in 1988. More recently, Atlas veterans Mandy Bujold and Arthur Biyarslanov each won gold at the 2015 Pan American Games.

Teodorescu had never watched the Trudeau-Brazeau fight before last week, but he knows a favourite when he sees one. And in his eyes, the smart money would have been on Trudeau.

“Physically speaking, the advantages are more on Justin’s side,” he said. “Sometimes, you look at two fighters and you see one guy thick and built, and you have the common thought that he should win. (But) it just depends on skill.”

***