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24
Mar
Harrogate's elite fighter preparing for his shot at the big time
From a little-noticed gym on Skipton Road in Harrogate, Nathaniel Kalogiannidis is preparing for the fight of his life.
He’s one on the UK’s best practitioners of Thai boxing – or muay thai – and he’s just three bouts away from winning a six-figure contract with ONE Championship, the world’s biggest fight promotion organisation. If you’re a little hazy on the muay thai hierarchy, think Premier League.
When I meet him at the Kao Loi Gym, he’s relaxed after a week in Morocco, where he and his girlfriend went for a quick holiday following his last fight. Yet nine days after the bout in Manchester, his nose is still bruised and his knuckles still hurt, but he’s in good spirits, relentlessly cheerful and hitting the pads on full power.
He lost that fight, but the winner – the UK’s number one at 79kg – broke his hand on Nathaniel’s forehead, so he’s out of contention and the Harrogate man has a second chance. He’s not going to let it pass.
He said:
Nathaniel Kalogiannidis punches opponent Dan Bonner during their recent bout in Manchester. Photo: Lamine Mersch.
His last fight was part of a four-man tournament where the winners were supposed to fight each other. They didn’t – “neither made it out” says Nathaniel – so that contest will happen next month at the O2 in London. The winner of that will head to Alberta, Canada in November. From there, the victor will be on a flight to Thailand.
If he ever feels daunted by how far there is yet to go to achieve his dreams – which appears unlikely, given his easy confidence – he should perhaps reflect on how far he’s come.
Born in Harrogate District Hospital, he spent his childhood in his father’s home country of Greece, where his dad introduced his “little hyperactive kid” to taekwondo. He won his first fight at the age of six and has been hooked ever since.
Nathaniel at the Kao Loi gym on Skipton Road in Harroagte.
He returned to Yorkshire and attended King James’s School in Knaresborough, always keeping up with the martial arts. Did he fight at school? He laughs:
Does he regard himself as a Harrogate fighter, or a Knaresborough fighter? Yorkshire, English, or Greek? He said:
Photo: Lamine Mersch.
He’s now a professional fighter and at the age of 25, he jokes that he’s “still got about 10 more years of punch-ups" in him. His record is 10 wins and five losses, but he says those don’t bother him. He ranks eighth in the UK at middleweight and his trajectory is ever upward.
He said:
That may be so, but it doesn’t mean he’s not deadly serious about getting to Canada and then Thailand. He knows who he’s up against and he’s training hard, with between 10 and 12 sessions a week – two a day, six days a week, each an hour-and-a-half or two-and-a-half hours long. He said:
Those 15 minutes are intense. The lead-up to a fight typically takes months, so there’s a lot of time to think about it. Nathaniel said:
It may feel peaceful, but that’s not how it looks. Muay thai is known as the ‘Art of Eight Limbs’ because it allows the use of eight “weapons” – the hands, the elbows, the knees, and the legs/feet – and the damage they can do can be spectacular. When Nathaniel’s last opponent broke his hand on his skull, the two of them were covered in his blood, and he needed seven staples in his forehead.
Nathaniel lost his last fight, but the winner broke his hand and will be unable to progress. Photo: Lamine Mersch.
Little wonder that fighters study each other intently to avoid the traps. In training, their sparring partners aim to imitate the fighting style of their next opponent, so that all the correct responses can be filed away and incorporated into the game plan. The last thing a fighter wants is to have to think too hard when in the ring. Nathaniel said:
He says the worst feeling is finishing a fight and thinking he could have done more. It only happened once and he’s never let it happen again. He said:
But then again, the other fighters are doing the same thing, so is there ever bad blood? Trash talking has become de rigueur in boxing, so is it the same in muay thai? He said:
That feeling is, of course, intensified by victory – winning, he says, is like an addictive drug. He said:
Whether he wins, loses or draws at the O2 next month – he says “When I win” – there’s no chance that Harrogate and Knaresborough’s hometown challenger will throw in the towel on his career anytime soon. Had he lost that first bout aged six, he would still have kept fighting. He said:
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