(NOV 19) In April 2004, Sandy Tsagouris
walked away with a unanimous decision victory over Olga Heron.
Tsagouris soundly defeated Heron and both women went on their
separate ways.
However, within the last year Heron had
her new mini van painted. Most would say “well big deal, who cares!”
What makes this new paint job so significant is that the new paint
scheme featured an unflattering photo of Tsagouris.
Photo by Durell Wambolt
In the picture Heron is landing a huge
punch to Tsagouris’s face which distorts it. The two boxers live in
neighbouring suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area thus it wasn’t long
before Tsagouris found out about her photo being on the side of
Heron’s van. Tsagouris was not too pleased and vowed to knock Heron
out if the two were to ever meet again.
Last night Tsagouris was given her chance to exact her revenge on
Heron as the two met in a six round matchup at the Powerade Centre
in Brampton Ontario, Canada put on by Stele promotion. This match
was one of the most exciting and vocal matches of the evening due to
the grudge between the two fighters.
Each boxer had a huge local fan base in
the arena which was evident when they were being introduced.
The opening round saw Heron taunting Tsagouris with a smile that
rarely left her face for the entire match. Heron was on the
defensive during the round as Tsagouris pressed the action and
landed many powerful overhand rights and an occasional uppercut to
the head of Heron. However, Heron did not seem fazed by the hard
shots and continued smiling, moving backwards in a defensive
posture, and counter punched well to the body and head when she had
the openings.
Rounds two and three saw much of the same action as Tsagouris moved
forward pressing the action and again landed powerful right hands
and uppercuts on the inside while Heron stayed defensive and on the
move, trying to counterpunch. At this point of the bout it was
apparent that Tsagouris was the harder puncher and more accurate
boxer who continually beat Heron to the punch.
During the rest period between rounds three and four it appeared
Tsagouris was becoming frustrated that she could not knock Heron out
or make her stop smiling. At the start of round four Tsagouris came
out swinging with the intentions of ending the match. Many of
Tsagouris’s punches landed clean and Heron seemed stunned but Olga
was able to survive the storm countering with body punches and
occasionally landing hard punches to the head of Tsagouris.
The last two rounds of the fight saw both women trading many hard
punches toe to toe which brought the crowd to its feet. However, for
the first time in the bout Heron had Tsagouris moving backwards.
Olga was able to zero in on Tsagouris and landed often with scoring
punches.
At the end of the match both women embraced and it seemed that any
ill will between them had been settled in the ring.
Once the scorecards were totaled,
Tsagouris chalked up another win over Heron and her sixth straight
victory with a 60-54, 59-55, 58-56 unanimous decision win.
With the loss Heron moves to 4-8 while
Sandy “Lil’ Tyson” Tsagouris moves to an impressive 6-0, with 3
knockouts. Tsagouris is scheduled to fight in Lansing, Michigan in
early December, details to follow in the coming days!
On a side note a lot of credit should be given to Jim Gentle and
Stele promotions. It is very hard to get professional boxing shows
sanctioned and off the ground in the province of Ontario. However,
over the year and no matter the size of the show, this promotion
always goes out of their way and tries their very best to include
women’s boxing on their cards and takes the women’s side of the
sport very seriously and they deserve recognition for this.
By: Rick McLean November 18th, 2006
