KOEN Mazoudier has suffered several setbacks in his career and came up short in his most high-profile bout to date just seven months ago. However, Mazoudier, 12-4-1 (5 KOs), maintains both the skill and belief to operate at the sport’s top level.
In an open and honest interview with Boxing News, the Australian super-welterweight contender admitted that he has struggled to cope with the defeat and pinpointed the key issues that he feels are detrimental to the mental health of modern boxers.
Back in August, Nikita Tszyu, 10-0 (8 KOs), went toe-to-toe with Mazoudier, whose professional record is deceptive. Aussie fans were hopeful of yet another brutal display from the Tszyu family, expecting a statement victory.
Yet, Mazoudier, who was overlooked by many despite being ranked in the WBA top 10 just 18 months prior, had other ideas and provided fight fans with one of the standout contests of the year. Pushing ‘The Butcher’ to his limit, Mazoudier was stopped in the ninth round of a back-and-forth display.
Speaking exclusively with Boxing News, Mazoudier explained that the fight was going to plan up until the stoppage, which he believes came from a misjudgment on his part. The New South Wales man opines that his performance, even in defeat, has seen his stock rise domestically.
“The Nikita fight was a great event. It was such a good event to be a part of and the fight itself was an exciting fight for the fans. It showed the country and the world what I am made of. It was a good performance but it needs to be better.
“There are lots of mistakes that I made. It was an improvement on previous fights, but there are lots of things that need to be done better in order to continue to progress.
“The fight went pretty much exactly how my coach had planned, and the game plan went pretty much exactly how we had prepared, up until the stoppage.
“The difference was me recognising or not recognising how far-gone Nikita was and believing in my ability to get the job done. Now I know that internal belief is the difference a lot of the time.
“The country knows who I am and what I am about now and as much as I am only really interested in my own and my team’s perspective of myself and my performance, you need the bums on seats and eyes watching to make the shows happen.
“My name is now mentioned when they talk about Michael Zerafa or Brock Jarvis or any of these top guys here in Australia. A loss is never what you want, but it has put me into those conversations, which is a positive that I can take from it.”
Mazoudier may have lost three times before his showdown with Tszyu, but he remains unpleasantly familiar with that unpalatable taste of defeat.
The 29-year-old opened up on the damage that the loss caused to his mental health in the time that followed, detailing the magnitude to which he had built up the fight inside his head.
“When you work so hard and you fully believe that you are going to achieve a certain thing and be a certain person. As a result, having that knockback and reality check is tough, I took a bigger knock than I expected to when I lost that fight [to Nikita Tszyu].
“Within an hour of my [2023] loss to Ben Hussain, I was back to positive thinking and knowing what I needed to do next. I was running the next day, and it was all systems go again.
“After losing this fight with Nikita, I had built this up as the doorway to changing the path of mine and my family’s life, I made it bigger than it needed to be. The downfall was as big.
“The last few months have been a struggle and it’s funny because I have such a good life, I have so many blessings, but the mind is an intricate and crazy place sometimes and the demons and emotions make things harder than they need to be.
“I am continuing to fight the good fight and learn more about myself, overcome the head noise that comes with trying to achieve greatness day by day and hopefully I can spread a bit of inspiration and show an example of resilience.”
Reflecting on the loss, Mazoudier emphasised how too much emphasis is placed on defeats from both fighters and fans. He vented his frustrations at how modern boxers focus too much on undefeated records and seek the easiest routes to success.
Instead, the Blacktown-based contender poetically used boxing as a microcosm of life, explaining how a professional record blemish is no different from a hurdle that others face outside of the ring. Both are essential and can also be overcome.
“[Mental health work] wasn’t something that I was really aware of or thought of until I had my first experience with depression and mental health.
“It was a slow roll into depression from failing over and over and not achieving my goals, but it really kicked off after my first professional loss a bunch of years back and my mental health has been up and down over the years since. I’ve been trying to build myself physically and mentally and I’ve been getting broken down by things.
“Everyone has such a fear of losing and everyone is trying to protect their ‘0’. Nobody is daring to go into deep waters and test themselves. I think that Muhammad Ali f***ed up the generation of heavyweights after him because everyone wanted to be Muhammad Ali and it’s the same with Floyd Mayweather because he made the undefeated thing seem bigger than it actually is.
“Losses are normal in life and they are normal in sport, especially at the highest level, in the hardest sport. Trying to avoid losing and trying to find the easiest route to the top is not how this sport works and it is not how life works – I have learnt that myself. I keep hearing about all of this ‘no risk, no reward’ kind of stuff and I try to be an example of that too.
“You need a healthy amount of fear and respect for your opponent in a fight because not having a fear of losing is a big hindrance to performance.
“I train a bunch of guys and I tell them that there are three things you need to give a f**k about; number one is getting hit, number two is losing and having that fear of losing and number three is getting tired, everybody is going to get tired in this sport – you need to not give a f**k about it and just be tired but keep going.”
Additionally, Mazoudier pointed out how the social media façade upheld by fighters and other public figures can convince fans that they live perfect lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mazoudier recalled how fans messaged him, inspired by his success, while he was sat in a mental health institute.
“When I first had my mental health breakdown and I was put into a mental health facility, I was having people at the same time messaging me on Instagram saying how great I am doing and how they want to do what I am doing.
“I felt like there was a real disconnect socially between reality and appearance. People think that famous people have everything together in their life, which is just not the reality of it.
“The fact of it is that people are looking at my social media thinking that everything is great, and I was f***ed up, everything was wrong at that time. So, that is what sort of led me to want to help spread that sort of awareness to people and to let people know that it is a hard day not a hard life.”
Despite the issues professional boxing can cause, Mazoudier strongly believes that the sport is extremely beneficial for mental well-being. He encourages anybody who is struggling mentally to walk into a boxing gym. Koen even spends his spare time helping troubled youths in his local community through boxing.
“A boxing gym is one of the most real places in the world, with a natural and unassembled hierarchy, a community of support with teachers and students and it is an all-around good environment.
“It has given me something to really want to better myself for and discipline myself for, to avoid doing all of the stupid s**t that I have done in the past or what the world can easily lead you too.
“I always say to people, ‘Just come into the gym, even if you want to just hang out and watch the sport to be around it’, it’s one of the best sports to be around whether you are just doing it for a bit of fitness, a bit of self-defence or if you want to compete, you are always going to get something out of it.
“For the last year and a half or so I have been working in a couple behavioural schools, which is the last chance for kids until they go to juvenile detention centres. These kids have got drug problems from young, or they have got no parents or abusive parents. I go to these schools and teach them a little bit of boxing and try to get into their ears.
“I’ve also gone to these juvenile detention centres where these kids are locked up, teaching them boxing and exercise but also just going in there and trying to put some positive stuff in their ears. To show them that you can be down in the dumps and f*** up like I have and still achieve some pretty cool stuff.”
Eager to get back to winning ways, Koen Mazoudier is set to return to action in two weeks’ time, where he gears up to face two-time and reigning Australian super-welterweight champion, Dan Hill, 7-1 (3 KOs), on the undercard of Tim Tszyu’s, 24-2 (17 KOs), return to home soil, where he faces America’s Joey Spencer, 19-1 (11 KOs).
Ahead of the fight, Mazoudier told of his intense and unrelenting preparation and promised to put on a ‘clinic’.
“Since my last fight six months ago, I have been in the gym pretty much the whole time. I had a few weeks off just to rest the mind and the body and to be with my family, but I’ve been staying fit and strong and have been continuing to learn. The camp has been ongoing for a while now, these last few weeks we have really locked in, and I’ve been working really hard.
“I have got some sparring lined up with Tim Tszyu and I have had some other great sparring, so all systems are set to go. We can expect fireworks as usual. Everyone that watches me fight knows that it’s always an entertaining fight.
“Dan Hill is a fit, tough competitor but I will be feeling stronger, and I will have more tools. It’s alright being fit and strong and that sort of stuff, but I am a smart boxer and I’ll be using the fitness and intensity that I have learnt under my new coach, as well as all of the tidy tools that I have learnt over the years to put on a real clinic.”
Should Mazoudier trump Hill and claim the Australian super-welterweight strap, he hopes that further opportunities will arise due to his fight style and game attitude, eyeing up regional titles and eventually a return to the world rankings within the next 18 months.
“The plan is to fight as many times as possible and to win as many times as possible. I want the best fights out there, whoever is the biggest challenge, best name, best ranking. I’m fighting for the Australian title in this next fight, so hopefully that will help me get a shot at a regional belt and help me work towards achieving a world ranking again.
“It’s going to be a big 12 to 18 months where I hope to fight four or five times and really launch myself into the world stage.”
Koen’s fight and the remainder of the Tszyu-Spencer card, which also features Olympic standout Callum Peters, 1-0 (1 KO), will be available to watch live on Amazon Prime Video on Sunday, April 6.
