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29 Jan, 2019 16:25

Russia's most beautiful boxer? Meet world champion Svetlana Kulakova (PHOTOS)

Russia's most beautiful boxer? Meet world champion Svetlana Kulakova (PHOTOS)

Russian boxer Svetlana Kulakova may look too pretty to be a pugilist, but don't the IBF world female super lightweight champion's knockout looks fool you, as the unbeaten fighter also packs a classy punch to boot.

When one thinks of Russian boxing, images of near-toothless, sweating brutes slugging lumps out of each other until they are both a bloody pulp instantly spring to mind. However, the svelte figure and gorgeous looks of world champion Svetlana Kulakova dispel that particular myth, and the pretty prizefighter may well be the most beautiful boxer in the country.

Stunning Kulakova has an impressive record of 13 wins from 14 pro fights, with a solitary draw the only blemish on her record, and having won the IBF world title in the women’s 140 lbs division in Moscow in 2016 against French fighter Prisca Vicot.

The 36-year-old has packed her Instagram with revealing pictures and even showed off her prize with a saucy topless snap in which she donned nothing but the belt and only her folded arms across a bare chest. Other photos show Kulakova in a skimpy bikini washing a car, and some are simply part of professional photo shoots.

The photogenic fighter has poked fun at her portfolio of pretty pictures, lightheartedly hinting that she is simply making a scrapbook of all the “most beautiful moments of her life”, of which there are clearly many.

“When I am a great-grandmother, my great granddaughter will say, sitting with her friends in the play pit: ‘my grandmother is a world champion boxer!’ I’m gathering the most beautiful moments of my life in a safe box!” she wrote under one post.

After an amateur career that included two bronze medals in Russian national championships and another bronze in the European championships, the gutsy yet glamorous Kulakova began her professional career in 2007 and after totting up four wins, took a five-year hiatus from boxing after the birth of her daughter.

Upon returning to the ring, she began on the unforgiving road to a world title. In her fourth fight back, Kulakova won the interim World Boxing Association world female super lightweight title, the only flaw on her slate coming in a 2014 stalemate to Argentine champion Ana Laura Esteche for the full belt.

As well as being a world-class athlete, Kulakova is a devoted family woman, often combining matriarchal duties with training alongside her husband and young daughter, pictures of the three posing often being posted on her Instagram account.

Kulakova's ring career overseen by World of Boxing, to whom she is signed, the same promotional company that boasts among its ranks Dmitry Bivol and Alexander Povetkin, current and former world champions respectively, and run by promoter Andrey Rybinski.

Despite her last fight coming in November 2017, the only defense she has made of the coveted IBF belt, Kulakova announced that she has not yet made a decision to give up her career, telling journalists in December 2018 she is training with a fight in mind.

“We have an agreement (with World of Boxing) for one fight, but there are no specifics. I am training, keeping in shape. I’m not retiring, Svetlana Kulakova has a lot left to say,”she told reporters.

“The IBF of course, say, that I need to take the fight. But it doesn’t all depend on me, it’s a team decision here. Could my decision about retiring change in a month or so? Maybe. That’s female boxing, unfortunately.”

So, if that agreement is honored, we may be seeing more of Russia’s most-beautiful boxer in the ring as well as on her Instagram account.

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