Tim Tszyu should be booked in for a shot at the undisputed 154-pound championship against the current (operative word) undisputed champion, Jermell Charlo.
He should have already had the fight at least twice.
Now, it appears, he won’t get it at all.
He has done every single thing in his power to make that fight happen, but this is boxing. Until the two men are in the ring, you can’t trust anything. The two were initially meant to fight on January 28 for the undisputed championship, but then Charlo broke his hand and the fight was postponed. Fair enough. It happens.
In lieu of that, Tszyu decided that he would instead demolish Tony Harrison, a skilled and credible professional, for the WBO interim super welterweight title in March of this year.
After that destruction we looked to be set for an undisputed title fight between Tszyu and Charlo. Charlo was on the Showtime broadcast, hilariously, discussing how average Tszyu looked in the bout.
The selling had begun. The wheels were in motion. An Aussie was going to get a shot at an undisputed championship for the second time since November of 2021 when George Kambosos shocked the world and beat Teofimo Lopez.
And then what happened?
Charlo said that his hand still wasn’t ready and told Timmy to wait until September.
Tszyu decided he wanted to stay busy and take another fight before the bout with Charlo, so he booked a fight with Carlo Ocampo. Ocampo is another established professional, but he was a step back from Tony Harrison.
The WBO announced, in a rare sensible move by a sanctioning body (Hailey’s comet comes around more often), that the winner of that bout would be made the mandatory challenger. This effectively would force Charlo’s hand (the unbroken one) and make him fight the winner of that bout by no later than 30 September in order to remain the undisputed 154-pound champion.
Carlos Ocampo falls to the ground after being punched by Tim Tszyu. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
In boxing, this is typically where the wheels come off. Think Anthony Joshua vs Andy Ruiz. That was meant to be a stay busy fight for AJ before a mega fight with Deontary Wilder back when their stars were shining brightest. That worked out rather poorly.
But no! Not here. Not Tim Tszyu. He won that one as well, in even more dominant fashion than the beating of Harrison.
So, we’re all set, right?
Wrong.
News emerged last week that Charlo would be leaving the 154-pound division, at least temporarily, to go up two divisions and fight Canelo Alvarez for the undisputed 168-pound championship. It appeared that Jermell’s twin brother Jermall Charlo would be the one to fight Canelo, but he dropped out reportedly worried about his own long-layoff due to physical and mental ill-health and Jermell stepped into the breach.
What does the above paragraph say about Tszyu? Nothing. What does it say about Jermell Charlo? Basically, that he wants the biggest fight for the most money. Nobody can begrudge the man for that. He is not ducking Tim Tszyu in favour of Canelo Alvarez, still one of the three best boxers on planet earth. That would be like saying an actor is ducking Damien Chazelle for a chance to work with Martin Scorcese.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Timmy is getting absolutely hosed.
While the Charlo v Canelo fight has been initially billed as Undisputed v Undisputed, when they enter the ring on September 30 Charlo is unlikely to be the undisputed 154-pound champion. Chances are the WBO will strip Charlo and email Tszyu the full WBO super-welterweight championship. Terrific.
What that also means is that the belts at 154 will very likely fracture and becoming undisputed there will be extremely difficult for Tszyu.
I say again, none of this is Charlo’s fault. A bout with Canelo is king-making if you win, and generational-wealth making regardless. If a fight with Canelo is there, you take the fight with Canelo.
But again, it doesn’t change the fact that Tim Tszyu is getting stuffed around by the machinations of boxing. It is not going to be very often that his name gets outgunned in the sport, but it has been by the biggest star and the face of the sport at the start of a three-fight deal with Al Haymon and the PBC.
So where does he go from here?
With the belts at 154 likely splintering, if I were him, I would seek a move up to middleweight. It is a glamour division with big names and, likely, bigger cheques. Perhaps a fight with Jermell Charlo’s brother Jermall (the WBC champion) is one that Tszyu could target if he fancied a shot at a belt first up or at least early in his middleweight reign. It would be a relatively easy fight to make as Tszyu has already made a deal with the Charlo brothers’ promotional outfit.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
If he doesn’t want, or can’t get, a shot at the Jermall’s piece of the middleweight title it would be in Tszyu’s interest to pursue a bigger name without a belt in the middleweight division. Perhaps a bout with Jaime Mungia is one that could work? Mungia’s last fight was a life and death battle with the terminally unlucky Sergiy Derevyancehnko contested at the super middleweight limit but prior to that he has been mostly a middleweight.
Given that Mungia is another in a long line of fighters chasing Canelo he might be hesitant to move out of Canelo’s division now that he has just set up shop there, but perhaps the money and the name recognition that would come from fighting Tim Tszyu would be enough.
Unlikely though.
Maybe Golovkin? That would be a star-making kind of fight if Tszyu can get it, but GGG has been relatively inactive recently and just ticked over to 40 years old. If I were him, after the wars that he has been in, I’d either think about hanging them up or fighting lesser opponents than the young, hungry and violent Tim Tszyu.
That specifically is the predicament that Tszyu is in. Without the leverage of those 4 belts, he’s just another guy who will be chasing the runoff from Canelo. He has a big name, a country behind him, and a fan friendly style which might get him some slightly better matchups but it is hard to see an obvious way forward for a fighter who did everything right but has just been stuck at the stupid foot of a stupid sport.
Let’s get ready to rumble! Pick a fighter and place your bets with PlayUp for great odds. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.
Nikita Tszyu defended his Australian super welterweight crown. But a fightback from opponent Danilo Creati threatened to spoil everything in the sixth round.
Nikita Tszyu has overcome a nasty mid-fight moment to score a unanimous points win over Danilo Creati and retain his Australian super welterweight title…
A bloodied Tim Tszyu has been cruelly denied in his quest to emulate his legendary father Kostya and become a unified world boxing champion…
Liam Wilson has suffered further heartbreak in Arizona, the Australian boxer losing his super-featherweight world-title fight against Mexican Oscar Valdez. In front of a…
Tim Tszyu has the chance to emulate his legendary father as a unified world boxing champion after the stakes were dramatically raised for his…
Australia's Alexander Volkanovski has lost his UFC featherweight title to Ilia Topuria, with the Spaniard scoring a stunning second round knockout in the main…
