Daylen Pepin

Trois-Rivières, a small gym and a room that held 300

Pépin trains at the Club de boxe Performance in Trois-Rivières under Jimmy Boisvert, who has coached him since long before there was a professional licence to talk about. In a profile published by Le Nouvelliste on 19 April 2026, Boisvert set out his case plainly: the fighter has the hand speed, the durability and the punch to make a living at this, and something in the ring that an audience responds to. The same piece described Boisvert as a father figure to him, and named the businessman Sébastien Côté as a backer who had funded two years of his career and said he was not walking away over the court file.

he turned professional late by Quebec standards, at 26, in a division — lightweight, at roughly 130lb on fight night — that is crowded across the province. What he brought with him instead of amateur pedigree was a local following. Noovo Info picked him up on 30 January 2026 as a new face on the professional circuit, and the detail that carried the report was commercial rather than technical: more than 300 people bought seats to watch him box four rounds on his debut. For a preliminary fighter with no record at all, that is the number promoters look at.

Twelve rounds of professional boxing

The debut came on 13 November 2025 in Montreal, on an Eye of the Tiger card, against Alexandre Giraldeau Perron over four rounds. Pépin won it on all three cards and put Giraldeau Perron down in the second, working behind a jab and to the body rather than hunting for the finish once the knockdown had landed. It is the only time in his professional career so far that an opponent has been on the floor.

The second fight was on 5 March 2026 at the Casino de Montréal, on the bill that Steven Butler headlined against Ramadan Hiseni. The opponent was the Chilean lightweight Felipe Bocaz, again over four rounds, and again Pépin took the decision. That took him to 2-0 and, more usefully, gave Eye of the Tiger a second data point: a fighter who shows up in condition, boxes the distance and sells tickets in Mauricie.

The third fight broke the pattern. On 11 June 2026 he opened the Théâtre Capitole card in Quebec City — the one Wilkens Mathieu closed by stopping Esquiva Falcao in the eighth — against Jordan Dzaba, who arrived at 3-3-1 and left with a majority decision. The cards read 38-38, 39-37, 39-37. Dzaba had lost more professional fights than Pépin had contested, and the loss carried the shape of a fighter who has not yet learned how to steal a round he is drifting out of. Pépin has boxed 12 professional rounds in total, won two decisions, lost one, and stopped nobody.

The file at the courthouse

The reason Pépin's name appears in the news pages of Le Nouvelliste as often as the sports pages is a punch thrown on 13 May 2023 at a venue in downtown Trois-Rivières. The man he hit was drunk, did not see it coming, was knocked unconscious, and came away with a broken tooth, a swollen eye and a concussion that kept him off work for a week. Pépin pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm and to obstructing a police officer — the second charge arising from a stop in Yamachiche in October 2023 at 1.40am, in breach of a 10pm curfew, at which he gave officers a false name.

It was not the first file. In September 2022 he was sentenced to seven months for an assault in July 2021 that fractured an 18-year-old's jaw, an offence committed roughly six weeks after he had received a conditional discharge on similar facts.

Sentencing on the 2023 matter was pushed back, and Le Nouvelliste reported on 13 February 2026 that the date had been fixed for 19 March in part because he had a fight booked at the Casino de Montréal on 5 March. On 7 April 2026, Judge Pascale Tremblay imposed 18 months to be served in the community rather than in custody, with conditions that confine him to his home, his work, his training and his trainer's gym, and made clear that a further appearance would mean prison. He had by then completed court-ordered anger-management therapy. His line in the April profile was that the life is now only work and boxing.

The practical effect is that his schedule runs through a court. Travelling the 130km from Trois-Rivières to Quebec City for the 11 June card required authorisation, and it was granted.

Where he stands in September 2026

He is 27, he is 2-1, and the loss to Dzaba means the undefeated-prospect route is closed. That is not necessarily bad news for a man in his position. Four-rounders against journeymen with losing records are the only fights available to a 2-0 novice, and they pay accordingly; a 2-1 lightweight who draws a bus-load from Mauricie is a more honest proposition to match.

Eye of the Tiger announced its 8 October card on 14 August 2026 and put Pépin on it, describing him as a popular Trois-Rivières native, with the opponent to be confirmed. No name had been attached in the coverage that followed through August. He and the Jacob Blais–Yoan Trottier bout — two fighters with a combined 0-3 record — are the only fights on a nine-bout card with nothing at stake beyond the result.

The Capitole on 8 October

The card he has been placed on is the largest Eye of the Tiger has built: nine bouts at the Théâtre Capitole with nine championships on the line, three of them world titles. Osleys Iglesias, 15-0 with 14 knockouts, defends the unified IBF and IBO super-middleweight belts against the unbeaten Oliver Zaren, 19-0-1. Wilkens Mathieu, 16-0, puts his NABF title against Vladimir Shishkin in the co-feature. Leïla Beaudoin defends the WBA interim super-featherweight title she won at the same venue on 11 June, and Dzmitry Asanau meets Luis Santana with two unbeaten records and the WBC and IBF Continental lightweight belts in play. Imam Khataev against Padraig McCrory and Thomas Chabot against Jose Antonio Sanchez fill out the title portion.

The Capitole is a 1,200-seat theatre rather than an arena, which is the point: Eye of the Tiger has spent three years building a room where a world title fight looks full on camera. Tickets are sold through Ticketmaster and the broadcast goes out locally on Punching Grace and internationally on DAZN. For a preliminary fighter the trade is straightforward — an early slot in front of a house that is still filling, on a night where the cameras are already warm.