Thanks to democracy, it’s been a long time since we’ve decided on a leader via single-person combat.
Now, I’m not saying that we should revert to physical battles in order to decide who should run a country—although, if 2020 does come down to The Rock Vs. Trump (both literally WWE Hall of Famers) I would LOVE to see that.
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Currently in Canadian politics we have two political leaders that train in combat sports—Jagmeet Singh in MMA and BJJ and Trudeau in boxing. As far as I know, this is the first time in the Great White North where two of our politicians train in the art of fucking ya up, bud—Jean Chrétien choke slamming protesters doesn’t count. So, being the only person at VICE Canada with combat sports reporting experience, I decided to take it upon myself, with the help of some experts, to see which of these two political heavy hitters would win in an actual fight.
(Andrew Scheer, like in most political reporting, was ignored for this article. Call me a cuck in my mentions—he can be like the guest referee or something.)
Admittedly, this isn’t the first time this conversation has come up. Earlier in the year, GQ asked Singh who would come out on top in a fight between the two and Singh said that he would “definitely” win. He recounted a seriously skilled fighting background, one that started when he was nine.
“I started off with Taekwondo and some Aikido. I did a lot of wrestling in high school. Later on I did traditional boxing and Muay Thai,” he told GQ. “I did a lot of striking, but my speciality was grappling so fighting around wrestling, Jiu Jitsu, and Judo was my main focus.”
In a recent conversation with VICE, Singh reiterated his confidence by saying, once again he would 100 percent win and that he would do so easily. “I think he knows it too, no offence, but if [Trudeau] wants to, I’m game anytime,” he jokingly told VICE News.
That being said, we all know the golden rule: pics or it never happened.
So, I took it on myself to analyze the available footage and take that footage to experts. For Trudeau, I obviously used his high-profile boxing match with Patrick Brazeau, but finding footage of Singh proved to be a bit more challenging. While the man says that he trains in a multitude of disciplines—and I believe him on that—there is almost no moving pictures of him training or putting his combat skills to the test available online. The closest I could find was him messing around with Jus Reign in 2011, and since the NDP never got back to my repeated requests to be provided with additional footage of their leader training, it will have to do.
I’ll be breaking the fight down into three separate disciplines: MMA, street fighting, and boxing.
MMA
In order to get the best take on who would win in a MMA match I got in touch with Robin Black, who, in all seriousness is the dude in the Canadian MMA world for a breakdown like this. Black has worked for the Fight Network, ESPN, TSN, and the UFC—most recently, he was one of the experts in the lead up to McGregor vs. Mayweather.
Luckily for us, Black didn’t just leave the bar when I brought up what I wanted him to break down. The fighter and analyst said that the biggest thing you’re seeing during a Trudeau versus Singh MMA tizzy is a fight between a specialist and a generalist. So, he analyzed the footage (again, we’re working with what we have) and broke it down for us.
“There’s very little martial arts, or combat sports footage on these guys,” Black told VICE. “There is a boxing match of Justin’s, and there is a very little rudimentary grappling of Singh. But there is other footage like the heckler going after Singh and Trudeau throwing himself down some stairs. These help me figure out what they will be like in a fight.”
The footage available showed Black that Singh’s grappling skills, while existent, were “very, very rudimentary”—he added that this was six years ago and grapplers evolve but “assuming not much has changed he’s a pretty rudimentary jiu-jitsu and judo player.” Black described Trudeau as a mid-level amateur boxer who couldn’t handle a professional fighter but would give another amateur a good test.
“Solid fundamentals, decent footwork, [Trudeau is] quite aggressive, he sets up his right hand reasonably well (at that level). He’s physically and mentally quite tough. While, from what I’ve seen, Singh hasn’t shown any propensity for fighting with his hands so it would be tough challenge for Singh to stand with Trudeau.”
The biggest issue in this fight will be Jagmeet Singh’s ability to take down and submit Trudeau, which might be an issue with Trudeau punching him in the face repeatedly. However, fighting isn’t just analyzing the skills and deficits between two humans but also looking at human attributes. Black says the now infamous footage of Singh handling a heckler at a campaign rally shows he would be a calm fighter and adds that the fact Trudeau can and does throw himself down stairs every now and then shows good spatial awareness by the PM.
However, in the end there has to be a winner, and after breaking down all the attributes of the fighters, Black made a call.
“The surface analysis, the old-school MMA analysis says that if Singh can’t get this to the ground, he’s going to get knocked out,” said Black. “But in reality, even if he could get it to the ground, that Trudeau with his skilled athleticism and ability with his hands, he would find a way to get to his feet and he’ll keep attacking. Singh would be able to put up a good showing with being comfortable in the chaos though.”
“You gotta figure, at the end of the day though, Justin Trudeau lays him out in the first round.”
Winner, as decided by our expert: Justin Trudeau. First Round KO.
Street Fight
Deep down, buried into our basic human instincts, most of us love street fights. You can decry them as dangerous, needless, and, above all, fucking stupid and you would be right—but goddamn if most of us aren’t going to watch a scrap on the street if shit goes down.
There are no strict rules in a street fight, meaning, in some senses, it is the most pure out of the three disciplines examined here. Street fights are dirty, grimy, embarrassing, primal affairs that typically end either really quickly or take way too long and leave both competitors with ripped shirts and ass cracks hanging out of jeans. Still though, the question remains: who would win in a parking lot scrap that features a soundtrack made up of people yelling “WORLDSTAR” in the background?
In order to understand that most likely outcome of a street fight, I got in touch with my buddy from Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, who, in our youth, used to whip some serious ass.
If you’ve ever seen a street fight you know that the dude who isn’t fucking around is going to win nine times out of ten. So, with that in mind, Jagmeet “Doesn’t Fuck Around” Singh, is our winner.
Winner, as decided by our expert: Singh, with a submission in the Burger King parking lot.
Boxing
So, here we are—the final round of the scrappy series between the NDP leader and the Prime Minister. It seems that the ball is solidly within Trudeau’s court here, but JT managed to pull off a shock victory in the MMA round and, most importantly, we have a different expert for boxing.
For this round, I emailed some questions to Corey Erdman a boxing analyst who hosts of The Breakdown for Showtime Sports and writes for numerous publications, including VICE Sports, about the sweet science. Erdman said that the current Trudeau who showed up to go toe to toe with Brazeau isn’t the same fighter—even with all the time constraints that come with being Prime Minister, Trudeau has somehow gotten better.
“If you walked into a boxing gym and saw him training and didn’t know he was the Prime Minister, you would simply assume he is an in-shape young guy who boxes a lot. The reason for that is that he still trains like it,” said Erdman. “Trudeau still spars to this day at Final Round Boxing in Ottawa, ON, and has worked with a terrific boxing coach in Eric Belanger, who’s worked the corner of heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in the past. Most people have only ever seen the footage of him beating up Patrick Brazeau, but he’s even improved since then.”
So, considering that info along with what we all learned during the highest-profile fight in a long, long time—Mayweather vs. McGregor—that MMA fighters tend not to do too well when they’re in specialists territory, none of this bodes well for Singh. Again, relating back McGregor and Mayweather, Erdman did say that when seeing the strength of Singh’s marketing power, that when it comes down to the brass tacks—who gets paid what—”Singh might talk his way into being the A-side of this promotion.”
Still though, in the end, Erdman assumes it wouldn’t be the newcomers day—there will be no upset in this round.
“The fact that we don’t know anything about Singh’s boxing background is telling. He has boxed, and has plenty of combat experience, so he wouldn’t be frightened and flinching in the ring, but he would likely be outgunned by Trudeau,” said Erdman. “Our Prime Minister wouldn’t have to dig into the archives of his fighting experience to prepare for this fight—he’s still sparring to this day. Singh likely wouldn’t be able to remember or learn enough to trouble Trudeau too much.”
Winner, as decided by our expert: Justin Trudeau, but Singh brings home a sweet paycheck.
Overall winner: Justin Trudeau, 2-1
So folks, there we have it. According to the footage we have, and despite Singh’s boasting, the experts have deemed that Justin Trudeau would rout Singh in two out of the three fighting disciplines. Just like in his surprise win against Patrick Brazeau in 2012, the Prime Minister pulled it off.
Maybe respond to my emails next time NDP… it didn’t have to be like this.
Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.
