It’s the middle of the night in Manchester, the early hours of June 5, 2005, and the last great age of Australian boxing is about to end.
Kostya Tzsyu, the greatest to ever do it from these shores, hears the bell at the end of 12 rounds with local favourite Ricky Hatton, and he knows the jig is up. Before the night – well, morning, as the fight has been shifted for the US TV audience – is up, he’ll have retired.
With him goes a legacy that stretches back through the early 2000s and the late 1990s, the last time Australia was a true force in the game, with Tsyzu’s time at the top overlapping with Jeff Fenech’s in an unbroken chain of champions.
Post-2005, it has largely been a barren time. Jeff Horn’s stunning win over Manny Pacquiao aside, there have been few occasions where the boxing world looked to Australia for big fights, and increasingly, the sport has withered on the vine.
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That’s not to say we’ve not produced great fighters, or put on great fights, but at a time when boxing is as big globally as it has been for decades, Australia has missed the boat.
We’ve fallen in love with the UFC, for one, with a convenient afternoon timeslot and a promise that the champs will fight the champs proving more endearing to younger audiences.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and we love the UFC – but there’s a reason why one is a new phenomenon and the other is the oldest sport on earth. Boxing is the pinnacle and don’t even discuss it.
Tim Tszyu knocks down Jeff Horn. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
We’ve also had a love affair with football fighters, who do a decent impression of pugilists. It might look like boxing but, in fact, it’s just fighting with gloves on.
Domestically, that has meant ex-footballers of various codes getting into the ring to paw at each other after a week of fight week cosplay, followed by an immediate admission that it was all to put bums on seats.
Great work if you can get it, and I wouldn’t begrudge the likes of Paul Gallen and Barry Hall a single thing, but it bears more relationship to our football codes than it does to boxing.
Both those two names made a rep out of being the hardest men on a football field, and nobody was tuning in to those fights for the quality of boxing on display.
The third aspect is yet to hit our shores, but certainly has captured the imagination: the YouTube fighter. I use the word fighter judiciously, because they’re not boxers.
It’s content and people will pay for it, so again, knock yourselves out – but don’t come pretending that it’s boxing.
Where the footballer fights are predominantly aimed at football people, the YouTuber bouts are for kids who don’t get close to watching any other boxing. Perhaps it can be their getaway drug, but I doubt they know who Kostya Tszyu even is.
That’s why this fight at the weekend is so important. Around the world, the sport is booming like it hasn’t since the 1990s, but Australia has missed out.
Where once the bulk of major fights went to Las Vegas and Madison Square Garden, just as many are now taking place in football stadiums in the UK and beyond.
Had Hatton-Tszyu been held now, it would certainly have been outdoors and in front of tens of thousands rather than capped at 20,000 in an arena.
George Kambosos punches Teofimo Lopez during their championship bout. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
The renaissance of Australian boxing seems to be at hand. George Kambosos, Jai Opetaia and Ebanie Bridges have done the business in the ring and become world champions, with the former able to bring his big business boxing back to Australia and do numbers that would put him in the bracket of any of the UK’s biggest names.
But even then, with all the belts and fans in attendance, it was not the major news event it might have been and I doubt many casual sports fans would be able to pick Opetaia out of a lineup, despite his win over Maris Breidis being one of the best achievements by any Australian sportsperson in 2022.
This brings us back to Tszyu. While he might get a little tired of comparisons with his father, that name commands instant respect among the wider Australian sporting public and gets him recognition that his peers can only dream of.
His promotional stable, No Limit Boxing, bring the best of the footy-player-boxer marketplace, with connections that come from their backgrounds in NRL.
Their tie-in with Foxtel is potentially transformative, and if you don’t believe it, go look at where boxing in the UK was prior to Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom stable inking a similar deal with Sky Sports.
Sky’s ability to cross promote boxing with soccer delivered the mass market audience to the sport that now fills out stadiums and pubs to watch fights. No Limit have the perfect playbook to follow.
When you have the promoter and broadcaster together, all you need is the star. Anthony Joshua was that man in the UK, using his profile as a London 2012 Olympic gold medallist to supercharge the whole sport through Matchroom and Sky.
Tszyu, with his name and backing, can do that too. Like Kambosos, Opetaia and Bridges, he had to leave Australia to gain his shot, but now he’s got it and he’s got it at home. This Sunday, when he faces Tony Harrison at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney’s West.
The winner gets a shot at the undisputed super welterweight king, Jermell Charlo, whom Tszyu was slated to fight before the champion broke a hand in training. Alternatively, the Aussie can look to Errol Spence, who has expressed an interest in coming up to welter.
It’s potentially the dawn on the next great age, with, again, a Tszyu at the heart of it. All the boy needs to do is win.
The fight is live on Kayo Main Event and can be purchased here for $59.95. There are limited tickets still available if you can get along to Qudos Bank Arena.
The card itself begins on Sunday lunchtime to satisfy the late night Saturday audience in the US, as is usual for huge combats sports events. That means a 12pm AEDT kick off for the broadcast and ringwalks in the main event expected around 3.30pm AEDT.
As befitting a fight as big as this, we’re going to get the cream of young Aussie talent prior to the big face off. Sam Goodman, one of our best fighters in the lower weights, will put his unbeaten streak on the line against Bondi-based Irishman TJ Doheny.
Goodman is rated highly and will face a tough test in Doheny, who has been in with world-level operators such as Mick Conlan and Daniel Roman.
Tim’s younger brother, Nikita Tszyu, will go in against fellow unbeaten prospect Bo Belbin, while 2020 Olympian Paulo Aokuso continues his professional journey with a 10-rounder against Cuban Yunieski Gonzalez and there’s an all-Aussie clash as Queenslander Ben Mahoney looks for his biggest win to date against Koen Mazoudier.
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