By Benoît Lelièvre

19.08 - First of all, I want to say that in no way, this article is a sign of disrespect towards Stéphane Ouellet. I think he had a great talent, but he's now lost on the path of life.

In the beginning of the 90's, boxing was a dead sport in Canada. The era of Hilton brothers was over. Their problems with the law drove people's attention away from the sport. The bottom of the barrel was when the Hilton's,all drunk,robbed a Dunkin' Donuts full of cops!

On December 17 1991, a new hope made his pro debut in his home town of Jonquière. Stéphane Ouellet gave a severe beating to Bobby Rockwell...at the pleasure of a roaring crowd. The people of a nation opened their eyes back on a sport they forgot too soon.

With the help of his manager Yvon Michel, Stéphane got a fight in Atlantic City at his second fight. He won a decision against the though Gary Carriero. For a beginner, Stéphane climbed the ladder of boxing really fast. At his seventh fight, he outlasted the durable Kevin Tillman and he totally conquered the heart of the Quebecers with victories over Roddy Batson(Canadian championship) & Daniel Garcia. And then...his first defeat...it wasn't a shameful performance. Darrin Morris was a though fighter and stayed in the world rankings until he died a few years ago from aids. The name of Morris had been implicated in some contreversy because he was still in WBO top 10 even some months after his death.

Stéphane was still very young. He came back to the gym, worked his heart off and gave an all-time Canadian classic fight against Alain Bonnamie...who was..at a certain time, one of the only Quebec pro boxers left. Stéphane brutally knocked Bonnamie out. The image is still seen at the beginning of RDS(french verison of TSN) boxing broadcasts.

Another big knock-out over Dan Connolly, some victories against Roosevelt Walker, Alex Hilton & Wayne Powell made Ouellet a hero in Quebec...and opened the eyes of some important people in USA. Some spectacular knock-outs over Maurice Adams and Alex Hilton(second fight). At this time, Stéphane Ouellet was considered #1 in WBC....and then came Davey Hilton Jr.

The big brother of the family took his chance to Ouellet. Why taking such a risk when your boxer is ranked #1? We knew later that Stéphane had really really big motivation problems. Yvon Michel, knowing that Stéphane was a very emotive boxer, he tried to revive his interest in training. Michel organized an all-quebec local rivalry. Hilton was perfectly suiting the villain role, talking crap about Ouellet.

The training had gone very bad in Ouellet camp. Stéphane was out of shape and was getting pummeled by his sparring partner Ron Weaver as soon as the sixth sparring round. The Molson Center was full this night. Even if Ouellet was out of shape, the fight had to go on. Relying on his natural skills, Ouellet had won the majority of the rounds. Hilton had broke Ouellet nose in the third round. Ouellet fought nine rounds with a broken nose. With one minute left, Hilton touched Ouellet with a powerful left hook and then gave all for all and stopped Ouellet with sixteen seconds remaining to the fight!!

The revenge had been awful for Ouellet. Hilton, clearly conscient of what he did, attacked verbally Ouellet more & more. Even if he had an adequate training, Ouellet was mentally absent when he climbed on the ring in May 28th 1999. Ouellet is the first to admit that he choked that night. He had been stopped in the third round after a vicious attack by Hilton....then the doubts begun. Boxing insiders started to talk about Ouellet weak jaw and about his unability to tie up his opponent when he was wobbling.

Ouellet never looked the same again on a ring. After three unimpressive wins where he looked slow and predictable, he won a bizarre unanimous decision over Hilton on Arturo Gatti undercard. Ouellet looked well..but Hilton wasn't answering Ouellet punches. Some non-founded rumours said that Hilton let Ouellet win that night. In my opinion...this is ridiculous. Ouellet won. His last good performance.

Following this fight...an extraordinary feud had begun between Interbox & Ouellet. Yvon Michel had attracted Dingaan Thobela in Montreal by giving him Davey Hilton for opponent, so Stéphane Ouellet made a lot of public outings against Interbox & his owner Heinz-Karl Mullheg...even saying on radio that Mullheg was a "shit eating scum." A firm of management, who was taking care of artists signed their first boxer. K-Management, lead by Éric Lamontagne signed Ouellet for a management deal, leaving Yvon Michel in the role of promoter only.

With Ouellet name still marketable, Interbox placed him in the undercard of Hamed-Barrera against Dana Rosenblatt. Few weeks before the fight, Rosenblatt turned off the fight due to an injury...what left place for Omar Sheika. Ouellet trained with an amateurs coach for this fight. He let Ouellet train "at his own rythm". In fact, we saw Ouellet in popular talk shows before his fight. A lot of doubts we're on Ouellet physical condition. Those doubts we're proved when Sheika destroyed Ouellet in two rounds.

Stéphane left the boxing ring since. He had been one year in MMA organization called UCC. His MMA career had been very contreversed. Accused of sucker punching his opponent at his first fight, on last January he fought Pain Peters, clearly out of shape, with a very fat mid-section. He got disqualified and insulted the crowd. He made a last fight in mixed martial arts against a bar bouncer in front of an empty arena...and he lost.

Recently, he confirmed was everyone was doubting, problems with drugs. Since his last fight against Hilton, Ouellet ability to speak(who wasn't very good already) had constinuously decreased. He had a child last winter and seems totally unfocused to competition. He was supposed to get back in the ring last July, but an "injury" made him unable to do so. On September 28th, he's supposed to fight Willard Lewis for the Canadian Super Middleweight championship. Lewis had been a cruiserweight all his career and alreayd fought Johnny Nelson...

As you can see, Stéphane Ouellet already had been a hero in Quebec. Sadly, his problems overcame his talent. Problems with drugs, motivation and quite frightening MRI's had restrained Ouellet to continue his walk towards the world championship. With an empty confindence tank and a suspect jaw, I don't think he could get back in the winning track again. He should take his retirement before getting hurt. It happens too often that a talented boxer waste his best years...