Kazakhstani “Angelina Jolie” To Make Her Professional Boxing Debut In U.S. In November

Kazakhstan’s female boxer Zarina Tsoloeva has announced she will be switching from amateur to professional versions of the sport, and will square off against a rival from Mexico next month in the U.S.

“I want to tell you the date of my first professional fight, which will be held on November 2 in Louisiana. The rival is from Mexico," Tsoloeva said via her Instagram page, Kazinform reported Tuesday.

The 23-year-old athlete claimed the top prize in Kazakhstan’s national boxing championship in 2014, in the 64-kilogram weight category. Tsoloeva claimed the bronze medal in the same weight category in 2017 at the cross-country boxing tournament.

Tsoloeva is better known for her kicks and jabs in the ring, and has a weird story of choosing the boxing sport. After several years playing volleyball, she wanted to shift to what she describes as a tougher kind of sport because of “a desire for learning to retaliate.”

"I love Muhammad Ali very much. He enraptures with his charisma, impudence, and egoism. And also as a boxer, of course," Tsoloeva told Medialeaks in 2016.

In addition to her sports fame, the ethnic Ingush boxer Tsoloeva is known widely in Kazakhstan as a doppelganger for the Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie. She is frequently described on Instagram as “heart raider,” after Jolie’s blockbuster hit “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” and “our national Angelina Jolie” by Kazakhstanis.

For locals in Kazakhstan Zarina Tsoloeva is "national Angelina Jolie" / Personal Vkontake account of Tsoloeva