This morning, on February 11, Caroline Veyre woke up as a world champion.
It was no longer a dream hanging on the wall of a gym. It was no longer some distant projection. It was real. Twenty years of boxing. More than a hundred fights. Thousands of training rounds. Mornings when the body refused to cooperate. Evenings when doubt quietly settled in. Injuries, second-guessing, sacrifices invisible to the general public.
But never quitting.
Last night, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Caroline fought the most important bout of her career. A world championship. In this profession, those opportunities don’t come twice. When the door cracks open, you have to break it down.
She prepared like a woman who knows her life can change in 30 minutes.
Photo: Caroline Veyre / IG – From left to right: Katia Banel, Hugo Lettre, Dmitry Salita, Jean Pascal, Caroline Veyre, Mark Taffet, Samuel Décarie-Drolet and Shawn Collinson
The breaks… and the bad breaks
Yes, it takes talent to get there. But you also have to survive everything people don’t see.
Securing the fight wasn’t simple. The Persoon camp kept demanding more. Contract negotiations dragged on. Then the date changed due to administrative issues with the Michigan commission. In professional boxing, the fight begins long before the bell rings.
And as if that weren’t enough, less than ten days before the event, Caroline injured her back.
In those moments, a career can turn upside down.
Hugo Lettre, physiotherapist and owner of Évolution Physio in Mascouche, agreed to support us. He quite literally kept Caroline on her feet. Daily treatments. Adjustments. Pain management. Without him, there might not even have been a fight. Behind every champion, there’s a team working in the shadows. Last night, Hugo was one of them.
The opponent: The Bernard Hopkins of women’s boxing
Delfine Persoon is an institution.
Nearly 60 professional fights. A career built on wars against the very best. Like Bernard Hopkins on the men’s side, Persoon defies time. She ages, but she doesn’t slow down. She doesn’t pick her opponents. She backs down from no one.
Her style is anything but textbook. Unorthodox. Rugged. Relentless. She was once disqualified against Ikram Kerwat in a chaotic bout — proof that when she steps into the fray, she lives on the red line.
Persoon applies constant pressure. She throws in flurries. She breaks rhythm. She makes fights ugly. And she has the engine to box a hundred rounds.
Facing Delfine Persoon isn’t just boxing.
It’s surviving a hurricane.
Photo: DAZN Boxing – Delfine Persoon
The plan… and reality
On paper, we knew Caroline was faster. More mobile. More technical. The plan was clear: use angles, control the distance, exploit the openings in Persoon’s wide attacks.
But boxing is never a laboratory sport.
When the bell rang, several parts of the plan disappeared.
Caroline dominated technically in sequences. The clean shots were hers. But Persoon’s craftiness and relentless pressure muddied the waters. At close range, the fight became dirty and chaotic.
Caroline’s instinctive solution to neutralize the charges was to clinch.
From the corner, we kept repeating: “No clinching.”
But between saying it and doing it, there’s a world of difference. When adrenaline surges, when fatigue sets in, when a veteran pushes you into mistakes, the body sometimes makes decisions before the mind does.
Even Persoon, experienced as she is, lost her composure at times. Proof that the fight was tense. Rugged. Emotional.
Was it a great fight?
Was it the fight of the century? No.
Was it a clean fight? Not that either.
Was it technically what we had imagined? Not at all.
But it was a real world championship fight.
A fight where two women imposed their will. A fight where aesthetics gave way to pride. A fight where you had to find a way to win, even when everything wasn’t unfolding as planned.
On my scorecard (and I’m not a certified judge), I had Caroline winning 7–3 or 6–4. The cleanest shots were hers. The sharpest work as well. Persoon was moving forward, yes. But moving forward doesn’t always mean winning.
What this fight taught us
Caroline learned last night.
She learned that the pressure of a world championship is unlike anything else.
She learned that a perfect plan can collapse in ten seconds.
She learned that winning can sometimes be imperfect.
I learned too.
In this profession, you’re always learning. But some fights reveal you to yourself. They expose your limits. Your reflexes. Your ability to adapt. They force you to grow.
This morning, Caroline woke up a world champion.
And I was thinking back to the first day she walked into the gym. I told her I didn’t have time to train her. That it would be better for her to find another coach.
Thankfully, she stayed.
Because champions aren’t always the ones you identify at first glance. Sometimes, they’re simply the ones who refuse to quit.
And last night, in Grand Rapids, Caroline Veyre proved she is made of that kind of steel.
