On This Day in History: March 31

Justin Trudeau's boxing match

AUDIO VERSION HERE

He’s just a skinny little my-daddy-was-prime-minister-of-Canada boy. He gon’ get his ass whooped by that other dude. Except that’s not what happened. Justin Trudeau, who at the time was a Liberal member of parliament, was challenged to a charity boxing match against Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau, and Justin wrecked his shit in just three rounds.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: March 31, 2012--

At the time, Justin wasn’t taken seriously as a politician; he only had a famous name. And Patrick Brazeau, a black belt in karate, said he didn’t think Justin could take a punch. One conservative commentator said Brazeau had probably been in more fights in a month than Trudeau had been in his entire life.

It was for a good cause, raising money for cancer research, and the stakes were high: The loser would get their hair cut off and have to wear a hockey jersey with the winner’s party logo on it for a full week. Everyone thought Justin was going to get destroyed; Patrick was a buff bad boy from a tough neighborhood with lots of tattoos, so people who don’t know shit about boxing favored him to win 3–1.

But karate is not boxing, and not only did Justin have a significant height and reach advantage, he had the right training and much better endurance. Brazeau charged out in the first round and gave Trudeau a number of good shots, which Trudeau handily absorbed, but by the end of the round you could tell the tide was about to turn in the future prime minister’s favor.

In the second round, Brazeau was gasping for breath and Trudeau landed punch after punch as the senator struggled to defend himself, barely surviving the round. In the third, Justin showed no mercy, charging out right at the bell and crushing the conservative with an impressive pugilistic performance that punished Patrick’s proboscis. A series of successful left-right combos staggered Brazeau and led to a second standing eight count, after which the ref called the fight for Trudeau.

The victory did wonders for Trudeau’s reputation, and a year later he won the leadership of the federal Liberal Party. Two-and-a-half years after that, he kicked Conservative ass again, this time at the ballot box, beating the shit out of incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper to win a majority government for his party.

The year following the fight, Patrick Brazeau faced numerous criminal charges for assault, sexual assault, cocaine possession, and fraud. He was kicked out of the senate and managed a strip club for a while, but was later allowed to return as a senator.

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