Kallia Kourouni: "People see Pink Tyson and visualise this super confident warrior woman, when in reality I am quite an introverted person."
By Matt Elliott
Kallia Kourouni, or as she's more widely known, Pink Tyson is on the verge of the biggest fight of her professional career. On June 7th at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Florida, she faces Edith Soledad Matthysse for the WBC Silver super featherweight title, with victory setting up a potential world title fight down the line.
The opportunity is a reward for the hard work and dedication that Kourouni has demonstrated throughout her boxing career, both amateur and professional, and it feels as if things are starting to fall into place for the Sparta-born fighter, who also recently announced a new promotional deal with Kris Lawrence, who is co-promoting the Matthysse fight alongside Hall of Famer Don King, which guarantees her up to five fights a year and provides an element of financial stability.
As I caught up with her via Zoom this past week, she was delighted that the fight was finally able to be confirmed and was looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead.
"It's excellent to be able to confirm the fight. I won the WBC International title back in 2021 and am I ranked in the top five with the WBC, so there are other girls ahead of me, but the President thinks I am the right one to challenge for the title and I am thankful for the opportunity. If I win, I am in line to face the winner of Alycia Baumgardner and Delfine Persoon, if that fight takes place. Delfine had the silver title, and she is the mandatory but Alycia has been out for almost twelve months dealing with her issues, so whether she will defend or vacate the title we don't know yet, but if she defends it must be against Delfine. If she vacates, the winner of my fight could face Delfine for the title, so this is such a huge fight."
In Matthysse, Kourouni is facing a very experienced opponent who has thirty-five professional appearances and has been in with some of the top females in the division, including Baumgardner, with whom she shared ten rounds back in 2022, losing by unanimous decision. Kourouni explains why, despite being given the option of a potentially easier opponent, she wanted the toughest test possible.
"It was my choice to face her. If you want to be the best, then face someone who has already been in with the best. If I'm honest, my team said why face her, why not face someone safer? And I get that, they want to protect me, but if I can't come through this test, how can I dream to beat Alycia or Delfine? This is my biggest test now, I want to be world champion, but the WBC had to approve my opponent for this fight. They gave me five choices and I took the most difficult one. I don't do comfort zones."
Kourouni's resolute attitude comes from her upbringing in Sparta, Greece, which is renowned for its history as a dominant military power. The fighting DNA extended into her family, although Kourouni admits it was never a path she expected to follow.
"Being from Sparta, all we know is boxing and wrestling. My dad was a world champion in Greco-Roman wrestling and a national champion boxer, and my brothers were also involved. I was educated in drama school, though, and was a dancer, so quite different from fighting. I lost my father when I was fifteen, and at that point, I began getting into arguments quite a lot. One day, I ended up getting into a fight with some boys who had messed with my bicycle, and a man came along and broke it up. He suggested I should get involved in combat sports and gave me his card. A few days later I went to see him and that's where it started. I was never a patient person, and to this day I'm still not, but for sure it's much better with the boxing. Boxing has educated me not only as a fighter but also as a woman and a human being."
Having started on her boxing journey, Kourouni was fighting on the amateur scene with a dream of reaching the Olympic Games. It was a chance meeting with her first manager during a tournament in Cyprus, coupled with the emerging economic crisis in Greece, that would change all of that, and also prove the catalyst for the nickname 'Pink Tyson' which remains with her to this day.
"My dream was to go to the Olympics, and I was targeting the Amateur European boxing championships in Romania in 2014, but the economic crisis was deepening in Greece, so there was no funding. I was fighting in one tournament in Cyprus, and I was up against a girl from Mongolia, I lost, and she beat me terribly, but she wasn't able to knock me out. One of the people watching was Rainer Gottwald, a German manager who was there on vacation, and he told me afterwards, that you are in the right sport but the wrong style and that I would be more suited as a professional. He asked me to come to Germany, and I found the money to do so. When I got there and went for my first sparring session, I wore pink. I got in with this girl, and Rainer was watching on. I was like a brawler. Technically, I wasn't particularly good at this point, and the coach was telling me to slow down, but I was there to impress, so I didn't let up. Rainer left during the first round, and I thought the dream was over. Afterwards, I went to meet him and his partners, and I said I thought they were going to send me home. He said no, they had seen enough after one round and were going to sign me. He then said, "You have a style like Mike Tyson, and with the pink thing, you will be known as Pink Tyson." It was clever because I punch hard and have a street-fighting style, and it's catchy and people remember it. If you come to where I train now and ask for Kallia, they won't know who you mean, they call me Pink or Tyson."
Despite Pink Tyson's public perception as a confident and extrovert female, Kourouni admits that outside of the ring, it's the complete opposite.
"My coaches call me Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde because Kallia is a very emotional person, and I'm quiet, and I've been told I'm too nice, but Pink Tyson is a different story. People see Pink Tyson and visualise this super confident warrior woman, when in reality, I am quite an introverted person. I think in boxing, you get that a lot. You need to portray a character at times. I am not normal, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but if I were normal, I'd pursue a career as a nurse or something, and I wouldn't choose boxing as a career, where I'm punched in the head for a living. Therefore, drawing a line between who you are as a boxer and a person is important."
After signing as a professional, Kourouni would go on to fight seven times in Germany and once in Switzerland, winning the Global Boxing Union and WIBF world super featherweight titles in the process. Then, in late 2017, she moved to England, where she made four appearances. Her experience in England was mixed, but it was where she met John Edwards, who remains her trainer to this day. Korouni explained how the move to England came about.
"At that point, I was fighting under Team Sauerland. I came to England and I was dating a doctor at the time. I got some sparring organised, but it was with an amateur club, but the coach put me in touch with John Edwards. When I met with coach Edwards, there was interest in signing me from Frank Warren, but I had the contract with Sauerland. My first manager always told me my destiny was America. He said my style was perfect for there, but because of the growth of boxing in England, I should go there first. He helped free me from my contract with Sauerland, so I was able to box in England. I improved during my time there, but I don't like the system. It is difficult to make money in England, as it's down to the number of tickets you sell, and then you pay the promoter and opponent fees, so I made no money in my first fight which was a defence of my WIBF title. England has great fans and fantastic knowledge of the sport, but the professional side can be improved to help the fighters. I boxed there for a short time and then got a call to go to Las Vegas and train at the Mayweather gym."
Kourouni's time in Vegas was fleeting before moving to Miami, where she admits to finally being settled. Her new promotional contract with a guaranteed five fights a year removes some of the stress around securing fight dates and the need to sell tickets, and most of the fights will be at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino which is only about thirty minutes from her home in South Beach.
Now at the age of thirty-two and having fought between 130lbs and 135lbs for much of her career, I wondered how difficult it was to make the lower weight and whether, despite the possibility of a future world title shot, moving up to lightweight was the next natural step.
"I've never found it easy to make weight. I'm very tall for 130lbs, I've never done lifts in my life as if I do them my shoulders get even bigger. My Spartan genes mean I have big shoulders and big hands, so getting that extra 5 lbs off kills me. When I fought for the WBC International, I went fifty-two hours without water and four of five days without food. I don't care for food, but I'm a waterholic. Without doing anything, I drink three litres a day. So, my goal remains to achieve what I want at 130lbs and then move up. I'm not like Katie Taylor or Amanda Serrano, these girls have strength and conditioning coaches and nutritionists advising them, but I do it by myself, I know my own body, but I figured it out alone. If you have the right people and they check you regularly, maybe then I could do 130lbs forever. If you want to get to the top though you make these sacrifices, if you can sacrifice then the talent you can fix, but if you don't sacrifice, it doesn't matter how much money you invest, you won't be successful."
With her fight against Matthysse now under a fortnight away, Kourouni is on the verge of a potentially life-changing opportunity. Despite everything she has already achieved in boxing, she remains as committed as ever to taking that next step forward.
I concluded our conversation by asking her about the future. In her earlier days, Kourouni successfully competed in K-1, a combat sport that combines elements of boxing and martial arts and held a record of fifty fights and forty-nine wins. With the likes of Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall moving across to try their hands in MMA, is that something Kourouni would consider going back to in the years ahead?
"One million per cent. I want to make my MMA debut this year because I have a background in both Brazilian jujitsu and grappling. For sure, it's one of my ambitions."
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