Mary Koller: “I would love to be a world champion.”
“It was a lot of fun,” Mary Koller says of her professional debut. Earlier this month in Oklahoma, Koller stopped Sharina Allsbrook in just sixty seconds. A maiden ring walk in the pro ranks that couldn’t have gone any better for the 31-year-old American. Koller hopes that quick victory over Allsbrook is the first step on the way to winning a world title.
Despite her pre-fight confidence, the fight still ended a little quicker than Koller initially thought it would. “The girl that I fought, in another fight, she fought someone who was a 14-time National champion. That girl stopped her in around 90 seconds. So I thought she might be able to hang around a little bit. I thought I might stop her in the second round. But I ended up stopping her in a minute. So I was really happy and proud of myself.
“I want to add that the training camp I had with Coach Monyette (Flowers) over the last few months and also training alongside Stevie Morgan really prepared me for this moment. I felt confident going into the fight that it wasn’t going to go long. I trusted the preparation I had put in, and I trusted my coach.”
Koller might be at the start of her professional boxing career, but there has been a long-standing background of competing in a sporting landscape before boxing found her.
“I have always been athletic and loved competition,” Koller told FightPost over Zoom. “I did division track and field back in college. After I graduated from college, I just went to the gym and worked out. But I didn’t like that. I missed the competitiveness. I am originally from Connecticut, so when I lived there, my friend introduced me to a gym and a class. It evolved and snowballed into training more. This was literally right before Covid in 2019. So I started boxing right before Covid hit. Everything shut down, and I didn’t start fighting until 2021, when everything opened up again.”
Fights in the amateur ranks were hard to come by, and that was part of the reason why Koller decided to enter the world of professional boxing. “If I was to do the amateurs, I wanted to be the best,” Koller says. “I accomplished winning a National title, so I thought, what’s next for me? I definitely wanted to go pro, and that’s led me to where I am now.
“It was very hard for me to get fights, so I only had seven fights, so not that many. But I have sparred girls all over New England. I travelled to gyms all by myself just to get work. I had a lot of high-level fighters around me when I first started boxing. A lot of top fighters, and that helped me grow and build my skill set to where I am now.
“I felt I had sparred so many rounds in the gym and learned so much. I am super comfortable in the ring. I have more of a pro style anyway. In the amateurs, I reached my goal and won a National title. I am 31, and I didn’t want to waste my time on the amateur circuit. Eventually, I want to be a mum. So if I am going to give everything and dedicate myself to boxing for the next 3- 5 years, I have to do it now.”
There is clearly a passion for her craft. A sport that has given her so much. “What has boxing given me? It is definitely empowering; it gave me confidence and built my strength. All the strong women I had around me when I first started boxing empowered me. Looking back, when my boxing career is over, I want to have helped all these girls to empower them and boost their confidence. I want to think that I turned pro after just a few fights and to see how successful I have been, and to give them confidence to do the same thing that I did.”
That undoubted passion runs alongside a fierce ambition to achieve big things in her sport. That tentative aforementioned time limit could change depending on how quickly Koller moves through the ranks. “You say you want to be out of the sport in 3-5 years, but you never really know. You don’t know what will happen down the road. If I do something, I give it 100%. I set my goals high. As a pro, I want to be ranked. I want to become a champion. Knowing me, if I don’t accomplish that in two years, I will definitely keep boxing until I reach that goal.”
“I’ve just had my pro debut,” Koller added. “Hopefully, I can get another fight before the end of the year. After that, I want to fight every two months and stay active. I am constantly in the gym. I don’t really take time off. If I stay ready, I don’t have to get ready.”
Her life outside of boxing couldn’t be more different. “I do marketing,” Koller told me. “That’s my career, social media marketing. I went to school for graphic design, and I got a minor in marketing. So completely different from boxing.”
Mary knows what she wants out of her sport. The early goals are to get ranked before an assault on the world stage. “I would love to be a world champion. When I close out my career, I want to give back to young girls and women, and eventually start a non-profit and build women’s boxing and give back what it gave me.”
