Alycia Baumgardner Wins UD Against Tough Leila Beaudoin

Alycia Baumgardner made the leap to twelve three-minute rounds look less like an experiment and more like an inevitability, outclassing Canada’s Leila Beaudoin over the long haul at Miami’s Kaseya Center to retain her IBF, WBO, and WBA junior lightweight titles by wide unanimous decision. Two judges had it 117-110, the third 118-109, and the numbers matched the eye: Baumgardner outlanded Beaudoin 158-98 overall, with a particularly telling edge in power connects, 109-65.

There was a brief spell early where Beaudoin’s ambition kept things honest. She pumped a jab, tried to step in behind it, and for a couple of rounds at least gave the impression she hadn’t come to Florida simply to admire the palm trees. Baumgardner, patient to the point of cool indifference, let the distance settle, read the rhythm, and began setting traps—small half-steps, shoulder feints, the sort of subtlety that turns a challenger’s “busy” into a champion’s “in control.”

By the third, Baumgardner’s right hand was starting to land with the regularity of a parking ticket. Beaudoin’s jab grew lazy and predictable, and the overhand right began to swell the left eye, the first visible receipt for every fraction of hesitation. Baumgardner didn’t need to rush; she simply needed to keep finding the shot, and she did—straight rights, looping rights, and the occasional left hook when Beaudoin’s guard rose too high in self-preservation.

Sensing the fight sliding away, Beaudoin tried a change of mood in the fifth, stepping closer and making it more physical, leaning in, smothering, turning the contest into something untidy. It made the round uglier, but not safer. Baumgardner still found moments—an arcing hook near the bell, a hard right in a pocket that shouldn’t have been there—little reminders that clinching a problem doesn’t solve it when the other woman can punch her way free.

From the sixth onward, Baumgardner began doing the kind of work that shortens careers: she went downstairs. Body shots thudded into Beaudoin’s ribs and midsection—44 of Baumgardner’s 158 landed punches were to the body—and the challenger’s attacks started losing what little sting they had. Beaudoin was game, durable, and still firing, but she was being forced to react rather than create.

The decisive punctuation came at the last second of the seventh. As Beaudoin reached in, Baumgardner timed her with a counter right and dropped her—an emphatic, late punctuation mark that turned a bad round into a brutal one. It was the kind of knockdown that doesn’t just cost points; it costs confidence, and Beaudoin’s corner had the look of people doing quick mental arithmetic they didn’t enjoy.

Baumgardner came out for the eighth as though she’d been promised an early night, pressing for a stoppage, stepping into range with intent and letting combinations go. Beaudoin, to her credit, refused to fold. She survived the worst of it, flicked back the odd right hand, and kept moving her feet even as both eyes showed the wear and tear of a fight fought at championship pace for championship minutes. In truth, though, it was Baumgardner’s ring: she dictated where the exchanges happened and which punches were worth throwing.

Over twelve rounds, Baumgardner’s control became undeniable. She landed 27.7% of her total punches and a sharp 38% of her power shots, while Beaudoin lagged at 21.7% overall and 27.4% on power. And while neither woman lived off the jab, Baumgardner still edged that department too, 49-33, simply because she was landing the first meaningful shot often enough to start her own sequences.

The scorecards told the story in plain figures: two judges saw it nine rounds to three with the knockdown, the third ten rounds to two, which is about where most reasonable people would land once the middle rounds began to tilt and the seventh round removed any last doubt. Baumgardner, who rose to prominence by stopping Terri Harper in 2021 and went on to unify the division to become undisputed in 2023, did all of this in a bout fought under men’s championship rules—twelve threes—despite being stripped of her WBC belt beforehand because of that very choice. On this evidence, the only truly puzzling thing is why it took so long for someone to let her do it.