By Kyle Kinder-
In late spring 2013, having spent his last eight months training with the Danish military, Landry Kore was mentally preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. Then he answered a life-altering phone call.
The voice at the other end of the line was a familiar one; that of former Danish Olympic boxer and Kore’s old amateur coach, Brian Lentz. Lentz told Kore about a tryout in Copenhagen being staged by European boxing promotional giants, brothers Kalle and Nisse Sauerland. The Sauerland’s were scouring Denmark seeking to bolster their roster of talent, which at the time included the country’s top ranked prizefighter, Patrick Nielsen.
Kore, a former Danish Amateur National Champion, was hesitant. He was a soldier now.
He told Lentz, “Listen, I haven’t done any boxing training in eight months.”
But his ex-coach insisted. “He told me, just come and put your name out there,” Kore recalled. “He convinced me to take a leave for the weekend and go to the audition.”
When Kore arrived at the gym, he quickly grasped the magnitude of the opportunity at hand.
“There were television cameras and newspapers. Patrick Nielsen was there and [former world super middleweight champion] Mikkel Kessler…there were over 100 people there,” Kore said.
The fighters, a mix of amateurs and professionals, were asked to workout at various stations. They performed cardio exercises, smacked speed bags, and pounded heavy bags. Once boxers completed the circuit of drills they were divided into groups by weight and made to spar in a mini tournament. Those who impressed during their sparring sessions advanced to the next round, while those who underwhelmed were free to head home. Despite not gloving up for over half a year, Kore, along with three others, progressed to the final round.
Knowing this round-robin style of sparring matches were his last opportunity to impress Team Sauerland, Kore dug deep. A mix of skilled boxing, ring IQ, and military-induced stamina resulted in Kore dominating all three of his opponents. Within weeks he was presented with his first professional boxing contract.
But as eager as he was to put pen to paper, Kore first needed to be relieved of his military obligations.
“In Denmark you don’t just go into the Army,” Kore explained. “I had to go through a selection of 400 people, and I think they accepted around 40. So they invested in me for eight months.”
He continued, “I had to speak with my captain and say look this is what’s going on right now. I told him I dreamed about being a professional boxer, but I also somehow got away from that dream, but this opportunity just came to me.”
Kore was prepared for rejection, ready to swallow the bitterest of pills. Fortunately, he would never have to.
“You know what, don’t worry about it, I’ll figure something and you can leave,” Kore remembers his captain telling him. “Today I’m even still friends with him on LinkedIn, he’s been supporting [my career].”
As unconventional a path to professional boxing as Kore’s was, his journey to the sport itself was just as unlikely.
Born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in 1989, Kore spent his first decade of life surrounded by family and friends, living a normal Ivorian childhood. When he turned 11 he left for Denmark to reunite with his father, who was living in Copenhagen.
Shortly after, Kore’s life took a cruel and tragic turn. About six months after leaving the Ivory Coast, Kore’s mother passed away. Less than a year later, his father kicked him out of the house.
“I ended up in a foster home,” Kore recalled. “It was quite stressful, leaving Africa and all my family, coming to Europe, expecting to live with my father and he put me on the street.”
In foster care, Kore became close with a 16 year-old boy, three years older than him at the time.
“Living with him, he became my brother, even though he was a different skin color than me,” Kore said. “And one day he came home and said he had an issue with some guy from school.”
They knew their new rival was a boxer, so naturally Kore and his foster brother headed to the local boxing gym, figuring they’d be able get their licks in a responsible manner, without fear of repercussions.
“I had no idea what boxing was at that point,” Kore admitted. “We got to the gym and we kept asking to spar. The coach was like, ‘No, you cannot spar with this guy, but you can get some of the younger fighters who are the same age as you.’ I thought, man they can’t do anything to me, but I actually got my ass kicked.”
Kore continued, “After we went to the gym again, eventually we even forgot the beef we had [with their rival]. But I really fell in love with the sport. At that time, with all the things happening in my life, coming up to Denmark with my father, and the only person there that I know throwing me out on the street…I felt like boxing was a place where I can find refuge.”
Oh, and the head boxing trainer at the gym Kore happened to stumble into? None other than former world super feather champion Jimmy Bredahl.
“He became something of a father figure for me,” Kore said of Bredahl.
Kore fell in love with boxing at a vulnerable time in his life and the love was mutual. But like all relationships, Kore and boxing have had their ups and downs.
Months after inking his deal with Sauerland, Kore turned professional in April 2014, earning a four-round unanimous decision victory 28 fight veteran Nikola Matic. He scored his first knockout five months later against the Czech Republic’s Michal Vosyka.
Four fights and four wins later, Kore and Sauerland parted ways in late 2015. The following year saw Kore, fighting at middleweight, decisioned veteran Andreas Reimer before brawling with Poland’s Bartolomiej Grafka in a fight that resulted in a no contest.
Without the backing of a well-oiled promotional machine, Kore traveled across the Atlantic for the first time in his career in 2017 and fought his eighth professional bout on a Christy Martin promoted card in Charlotte, North Carolina where he scored an easy KO1 over Richmond’s Travis Davidson. In his next bout, Kore knocked out Armenian Armen Ypremyan to claim the IBO Mediterranean Middleweight Title for his first taste of alphabet hardware.
Promoter-less, Kore signed with a German management team in 2018 and began splitting time between Copenhagen and Karlsruhe, Germany. It’s at the Mach1 Gym in Karlsruhe where Kore practices his craft under the tutelage of top-rated German trainer Dominik Junge.
After going 1-0-1 in 2019, Kore hoped 2020 would be the year he’d create big waves in the middleweight waters, with a personal goal of cracking the top ten of an alphabet ranking.
After penning a new contract with an upstart Danish promotional company, Kore’s 2020 began with a bang when he KO’d Frenchman Idaas Redjdal in late February. Then the COVID-19 pandemic thrust the world into disarray. Uncertainty ruled the day and Kore and his new team had little control over when his next contest would be.
“They said March, then in May, June, July,” Kore said. “During all this time at some point, my body said you need to relax. I was training too much, overtraining. I was training for a fight and then about a week or two before a fight the Danish government said no events….so I had to stop training.”
Kore eventually eased off the gas and split with his Danish promoters. In March 2021 Kore made a curious, but calculated career move for someone with only one fight in America and inked a deal with California-based promoter Shane Shapiro and his promotional company, No Limit Mindset.
Junge and Shapiro had a prior relationship, and Kore was impressed with the way the young promoter had managed the career of Turkish-German super middleweight Cem Kilic. A few phone calls later, Kore was convinced that signing with No Limit Mindset was the right decision for his career.
“When I spoke with Shane, the whole vibe, the energy, it was completely different,” Kore said glowingly.
With his promotional situation straightened out, Kore, who hasn’t fought in 14 months, has his sights set on returning to the ring as soon as possible.
“Shane is planning something for the end of May or June,” Kore said. “He really wants me to get in the ring, but there have been so many things in Germany, the restrictions and lockdowns, not even allowing professional athletes to train.”
The 31 year-old Kore continued, “It doesn’t really matter where the fight is, I just want to have progression in my career. The goal is to climb the rankings and get into the top ten. This is what I want, this is what I dream of, this is what I’m willing to do everything for. If the fights are in the US, then let’s go.”
Currently, Boxrec.com rates Kore, whose record stands at 11-0-1 with 6 kayos, as Denmark’s top-ranked male boxer. He admits that at present, though, the state of the country’s female fight game is a bit healthier than the men’s.
“Right now the female fighters are doing pretty good, but the males…the young guys are still prospects,” Kore said. “The promoters just need to keep these young guys busy. It looks like maybe one or two more years before it looks like anything.”
While a younger generation of Danish fighters may be a few years away from earning legitimate contender status, Kore knows he’s knocking on that door.
He anticipates he’ll return to the ring with a “comeback fight” against a modest level of competition. After that, he believes just one or two wins against “next-level” competition will catapult him into a top ten ranking and position him for a crack at a world title. That’s the roadmap to glory that Kore has laid out in his mind. With Shapiro and Junge in his corner, Kore believes he now has the right team around him to help him fulfill his dreams.
Time and again, whether in life or in the ring, Kore has shown an extraordinary ability to overcome adversity. He may get knocked down, but you can’t count him out. Only a fool would doubt him.
