Decorated Canadian amateur Wyatt Sanford will make his debut against Shawn Archer at the Montreal Casino, Montreal, on Thursday evening.

Sanford, who will be is trading in his head gear and vest, welcomes the next chapter of his career.

"I'm looking forward to it, it's definitely nice fighting back in Canada again," Sanford told The Ring. "Super happy to be with Eye of The Tiger and hopefully it's a great fight."

Sanford became the first Canadian boxer since David Defiagbon in 1996 to claim an Olympic medal after picking up bronze in Paris last summer.

"Great experience, super happy," he said. "I did well, we performed in every fight. We didn't get the outcome in the last fight [against Sofiane Oumiha in the semi-final.]

"The overall performance was excellent and looking forward to the next step."

The 26-year-old southpaw, who won multiple national titles at different age groups, collected bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth games, gold at the 2023 Pan-Am games, represented his country at the 2019 World Championships and the 2020 (delayed to 2021) and 2024 Olympics, admits he didn’t always aspire to be a professional.

"For years, I never wanted to go pro, I wanted to represent Canada and then a couple of years ago they introduced that you can do both and that's when I started thinking about going professional,” he revealed. “Leading into Paris, I was thinking about going professional and after Paris, I sat down with my wife and said, 'OK, let’s go pro.'”

As an amateur, Sanford bounced around the different weight classes. That experience coupled with close to 140 bouts in the unpaid ranks helped him realize what his natural weight is.

"For Tokyo Olympics, I was 152 and for Paris we dropped down to 139,” he explained. “For the Tokyo Olympics, I was actually weighing in at 146, I was a small guy for Tokyo. As soon as we were done with those Olympic games, I told my coaches, 'I'm not fighting that weight anymore. I'm going down to the smaller weight class.' Since I made that drop in the amateurs, I podiumed in every competition I did. That's where we feel 140, 135 will be the sweet spot in the pros.

"This fight will be at 140 but we'll probably drop down to 135 after a few fights. Naturally, I'm more 140 guy."

The Nova Scotia native is married to Pamela Ware, a synchronized diver, whose partner is Jennifer Abel, who is married to former IBF middleweight titlist David Lemieux, will train at home with Brad Ross before heading to camp in Montreal where he’ll train under the watchful eye of Vincent Auclair.

He freely admits there is a big difference between the amateur and professional ranks, and it may take some adjusting before he can find his groove.

"For me, most of the fights I lost, if I had another round or two, I would have won. So, it's going to be nice having those extra rounds. I'm kind of a slow starter, so it's going to be nice but it's very different with the press conference and weigh ins. It might take a bit of time to get used to but I'm looking forward to it."

Camille Estephan of Eye of The Tiger is happy with his companies latest signing.

"Wyatt could have signed with anyone, I think he wanted to fight in Canada," said Estephan. "He's a very appealing fighter, who should translate well into the pros. I can't wait to see Thursday night. We're very excited and I think this guy is going to go very far."

Asanou-Patera, plus undercard bouts, will be broadcast on ESPN+ at 6:30 p.m. ET/ 3:30 p.m. PT