Promoter Eddie Hearn says he’s not sure if Tim Tszyu is “elite-level” after watching his back-to-back defeats in 2024 to IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev and Sebastian Fundora.
Rebuild Tszyu
Hearn feels that Tszyu’s promoters believed he was better than he actually was and put him in fights that were above his level. He’s now suffered consecutive defeats, and his career is on the rocks. Eddie says if he were Tszyu’s promoter, he would bring him back to Australia and give him a “confidence” booster type of fight. He needs to be rebuilt in terms of his confidence.
The way that Tszyu (24-2, 19 KOs) was obliterated in three rounds by Murtazaliev on October 19th was a red flag that he’s not fighting at the elite level. There were no adjustments made by the former WBO 154-lb champion Tszyu after the first knockdown, and he came into the fight with a bad game plan of brawling with one of the best punchers in the division.
“I’m a big Tim Tszyu fan. I think he’s a great fighter. Sometimes, you can believe your own hype a little bit as a fighter, and I think they felt that Tim was unbeatable,” said Eddie Hearn to Jai McAllister’s YouTube channel, talking about former WBO junior middleweight champion Tim Tszyu’s management matching him a little too tough against Bakhram Murtazaliev.
“I really admire that they took that fight, and they should have taken that fight [Bakhram] because it’s for a world championship. But no one really wants to fight that guy because he’s a serious dude with no value. So, if you get beat by him, you’re kind of like, but I like the fact that they did it, and I like the fact that he’s a real fighter.
“Sometimes, you can get carried away. There’s a massive difference between fighting in Australia and the Australian market and then going out on the world stage and taking on elite opposition. You saw that against [Sebastian] Fundora, and he [Tszyu] was very unlucky in that fight with the injury and everything,” said Hearn.
Tsyu will need to develop more as a boxer because there are fighters in the 154-lb division with better offensive ability than him. Some of them, like Murtazaliev, Serhii Bohachuk, and Vergil Ortiz Jr, have just as good power, if not better. It’s troubling that Tim didn’t make any adjustments in either of his last two fights against Bakhram and Fundora when things were going badly for him. He just kept plowing ahead, walking into shots, and getting beaten up.
“But you can’t just walk through people at that level,” said Hearn about Tszyu.”You’ve got to be cuter than that, and Tim has been built off that. I love watching Tim Tszyu. He’s very, very exciting, but you don’t really want too many fights like that. It’s really going to shorten your career, and it’s going to be interesting to see what they do with him when he comes back.”
One could see before Tim’s fight with Murtazaliev that he was going to have problems with this guy if he didn’t change his style and use a different approach. He thought he could knock him out like he’d done against lesser fighters like Carlos Ocampo, Tony Harrison, and Steve Spark. He found out that they’re a lot better than those flawed guys, and now his career is suffering for his mistake.
Elite Level Gap
“I think the unknown about Tim Tszyu is, is he really elite level,” said Hearn. “He’s a world-class fighter; there’s no doubt about it. But is he really at that level? Maybe. I think the jury is out. There’s no shame in that. Sometimes, you step up to that level, and you’re not good enough.”
Obviously, Tszyu isn’t an elite-level fighter, but Hearn is being diplomatic by not telling it like it is. He’s a contender-level fighter at the mid-range level but nowhere near the top. If you put Tszyu in with former 154-lb champions Serhii Bohachuk and Israil Madrimov, it would end badly for him.
“If I was his promoter, I’d probably fight him over here [Australia], and get him a confidence win against a top 15 guy, and then I’d go back to America. One thing you know. He’s must-watch TV, Tim Tszyu. He’s not going to struggle to get opportunities because people think they can beat him, and he’s great to watch,” said Hearn.
