During his reign of champion, Adonis Stevenson had expressed the wish to fight in Haiti. In 2015, his dream almost came true thanks to the GYM Group.
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To organize a gala in Haiti, logistics must come close to perfection. Bernard Barré and Alexandra Croft of the GYM group, the television producer Claude Brière, the production manager Sylvain Pelletier as well as the lighting designer
André Langevin had therefore gone to Port-au-Prince to lay the foundations for this ambitious project.
It all starts with a visit to the Pétion-Ville soccer stadium where Stevenson’s fight was to be presented. The five representatives of the GYM Group show up at this location with the objective of locating.
Photo courtesy
A view of the layout of the Pétion-Ville soccer stadium in preparation for the fight that never took place in Haiti.
They take the opportunity to present the detailed plan for the organization of a boxing gala to a person from the government.
A special warehouse
On the second day of the stay, the group must establish contact with several companies for the logistics of the event.
“We are going to meet a sound and lighting company. We thought she was reliable because she did business with the government, says Pelletier. We drove for 20 minutes and stopped in front of an elementary school. “
Pelletier hands a long list of materials to the owner of the company who has left school. He says he has all the necessary equipment.
“I ask him to go see his warehouse. I follow him into school and he opens a classroom door. Equipment is everywhere in the room. It is pell-mell. Several devices are not in good condition. “
Independent current
In Port-au-Prince, electricity is produced using huge generators. For the boxing gala, the organizers decide to use an independent electrical network to avoid sudden power cuts during the evening.
They need three generators that can produce 400 kilowatts each. A Haitian company is able to supply the equipment with the required standards.
“At the end of the day, we took stock. Most of the equipment offered did not meet our criteria, explains Pelletier. We then decided to bring several things from the continent using a boat. “
Dangerous walk
It is all well and good for maritime transport, but we had to find a way to transport the equipment to the stadium.
“In Port-au-Prince, the power and telephone lines are very low,” says Pelletier. After our meeting, we decided to go and identify the problematic places for the possible passage of trucks. “
At around 11 p.m., Pelletier and producer Claude Brière decided to take a night walk with ten security agents.
“In our SUV truck, I point out to Claude that there are three bullet holes in his window. At one point, we stop in the middle of a boulevard for no apparent reason. There are three security guards chatting together.
“I decide to go out to see what’s going on. All other agents exit other SUVs with their jackets [pare-balles] and their machine guns in hand to surround me. I was quickly made to understand that we are a few meters from Sun City, where the crime rate is the highest in Haiti. I wisely returned to my vehicle. “
The duo ends their reconnaissance tour without a hitch and returns to the hotel. The five Quebec representatives leave for Montreal with several answers to the many questions they had at the start.
Government backs down
After a few weeks of reflection, the government of Haiti decided to back off from the project, which had a budget of $ 5 million.
“Everyone was ready to move on. The Showtime network, Al Haymon and Adonis were in favor of the project, recalls promoter Yvon Michel.
“However, the government withdrew from the file because it did not have the necessary funds. It’s a shame because the site of Adonis’ fight would have provided extraordinary images for television. “
The project of GYM and its champion had failed, but it was not for want of not having tried. Despite everything, all the speakers will remember the warm welcome of a people who wanted to do things right.
