Sitting defiantly in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland is famous for many things: its spectacular scenery; its Viking history; its volcanic nature; Bjork; knocking England out of the 2016 UEFA European Championships.
It is not, however, widely noted for its boxing scene – unsurprisingly so, given that professional boxing was banned in the country in 1956, remains illegal, and was not exactly at the forefront of the sport globally beforehand. But the Nordic nation boasts precisely one professional pugilist: heavyweight Kolbeinn Kristinsson, 6’6”, approximately 260 pounds, and with a record of 16-0 (10 KOs).
Asked how he initially even developed an interest in the sweet science, Kristinsson told BoxingScene that it was just like anybody else: swapping punches for money in Iceland may be illegal, but broadcasting and watching it on TV isn’t, and the 36-year-old recalls watching the rematch between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield at the age of nine and catching the bug.
“During the Tyson era, the Lennox [Lewis] era, all those guys, there was a lot of boxing on TV,” he explains.
That he was able to develop his interest beyond the televisual was down to the fact that, in 2002, the country opened the door a crack, permitting the establishment of boxing gyms and clubs as well as amateur bouts.
“Big amateur shows can sell a couple thousand tickets,” he says – no small feat in a nation of just 380,000 inhabitants.
When Kristinsson was 18 and, he admits, “a bit overweight,” he was talking with a work colleague who was opening a boxing gym.
“And he was like, ‘Hey, you should come try boxing. You got long arms. You can beat somebody up.’ And I showed up on the second day that the gym was open, and was there until it closed during COVID.”
He started competing in amateur tournaments – winning, he says, maybe 60 percent of the 40 or so bouts in which he participated. Most of them were outside of Iceland, “and I had to pay for the flight ticket, the hotel, everything. So it was a lot of money that went into it, just to maybe fly somewhere and lose.”
In 2014, he was able to turn professional under a license in Sweden, where boxing had also been banned between 1970 and 2007. His first pro fight was a four-round decision over Janis Ginters in the Swedish town of Vasteraas; since then, he has fought three more times in Sweden, eight times in Finland, twice in the United States – including on the undercard of a January 2020 ShoBox card headlined by Shohjahon Ergashev knocking out Adrian Estrella – and once apiece in Denmark and Austria, the latter of which will be the site of his next fight on December 7.
His first fight in Austria came last September, after not having fought since the previous October. Frustrated at his lack of opportunities, he reached out to Markus Lammi, the promoter and matchmaker responsible for securing his bouts in Finland, and asked if he had anything for him.
Lammi found him a spot on a card in Vienna, but there was a catch.
“I had to finance it,” he says. “So I got sponsors to pay for the other guy [Britain’s Michael Bassett, who entered with a 2-10 record and was summarily dispatched in two rounds] and everything. And I’ve been doing that, kind of just paying my way and being my own promoter,” he explains.
It certainly hasn’t been a ticket to riches, and the costs of keeping himself in the game have forced him to adjust his training situation.
After a 2017 fight in Finland proved tougher than it needed to be, Kristinsson figured that something was missing and decided to try out a more experienced coach. He reached out to SugarHill Steward, and caught a flight to Detroit.
The advantage of working with Steward, he says, was not just the coaching skills he brought to the table but also the fact that training in the Motor City fit his budget.
“The flights aren’t expensive and staying in Detroit is really cheap,” he says. Since then, however, Steward has moved to Florida, which is out of Kristinsson’s price range.
“It’s super expensive to go there,” he says. “Four weeks is $5,000 to $7,000. So, I’ve just leaned into my original amateur coach, because he’s the most technical coach I’ve ever met in my career.”
The Steward connection proved beneficial when the trainer’s most famous student, Tyson Fury, showed up in Reykjavik, Netflix film crew in tow, on a spontaneous quest to challenge Thor Bjornsson, the giant best known for portraying “The Mountain” on Game of Thrones.
Thornsson wasn’t even in the country at the time, but Kristinsson reached out to Fury, jokingly asking why he was avoiding him and whether he was afraid to fight him.
Fury invited him to dinner, “and when I was there he said, ‘Hey, a friend of mine is training for a fight. We should call him.’ So he called Joseph Parker on video call. He’s like, ‘Hey, Joe, I got a guy that can spar you.’ So a week later, I was in Morecambe training with Joe.”
After turning pro at age 26 and fighting just 16 contests in a decade against largely hapless opposition, Kristinsson knows he hasn’t exactly set the world on fire so far. But, he says, sparring with the likes of Parker and Fury – plus several hundred rounds he has amassed over the years working with Robert Helenius – has helped reassure him that he belongs at that level. After his bout on December 7, he hopes to sit down with some British promoters and find some meaningful bouts for 2025. His dream fight for next year, he says, would be against Dillian Whyte.
Meanwhile, back home in Iceland, he has become something of a star. His quixotic quest was initially dismissed as a bit of a joke; but, he says, as he has progressed, “there is becoming a little bit of hype when I’m in a fight. People go to a certain bar, they have an event and show the fight. And then when I’m in the grocery store, people come up and say, ‘Hey, good fight.’”
His career has also caused something of a boom in interest in boxing in Iceland; there is even a bill to legalize the professional code in the country – although, he says, people in the know have suggested to him there is a “maybe two percent” chance it becomes law.
Of course, the longer the sport remains illegal, the longer Kristinsson is likely to remain Iceland’s greatest ever professional boxer.
“Maybe it will be that way forever,” he chuckles. “That would be amazing.”
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcasted about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.