As Tim Tszyu prepares for a battle royale with fellow former champion Errol Spence Jr, he must be aware that this fight is an opportunity he has never had before.
After a remarkable 24-0 start to his professional career came to an end in brutal, bloody fashion against Sebastian Fundora under the bright lights of Las Vegas in March 2024, his crown has undeniably slipped.
Tszyu v Spence Jr. | Sunday July 26 from 11am AEST | Tim Tszyu takes on the biggest name in his career so far – future hall-of-famer Errol Spence Jr, in a can’t miss event for boxing fans around the world. | Order Now with Main Event on Kayo Sports.
That defeat did more than cost him the WBO light middleweight title he had held since taking down Tony Harrison 12 months earlier: it dented his previously unshakeable confidence for the world, and his rivals, to see.
But following three losses in four fights – including a painful seventh-round retirement in his rematch with Fundora in July last year – the 31-year old has already begun his rise from the ashes.
It’s a rise that, for Australian boxing doyen Ben Damon, makes his new moniker “the Phoenix” – having retired the Damon-dubbed “Soul Taker” epithet after defeating Anthony Velazquez late last year – even more symbolic.
“A phoenix rising from the ashes – that is what he has he done in a career sense,” Damon told foxsports.com.au.
“To recommence his career and to start to climb back towards the top where he truly believes he deserves to be, he has risen.
“And now he gets his opportunity in this fight to springboard from this level, having returned, to being right at the very top of the tree as he wants to be.”
START TIME: What time does Tim Tszyu fight Errol Spence Jnr and how to watch
ULTIMATE GUIDE: Why all the pressure is on Tszyu… and how one win could change everything for Aussie
Tszyu & Spence Jr. go face-to-face | 01:11
TSZYU’S CHANCE TO ‘CEMENT HIS POSITION IN HISTORY’
Damon was behind the mic the night Tszyu announced himself as more than just the son of Australian boxing royalty Kostya – a changing-of-the-guard pummelling of Jeff Horn in Townsville six years ago.
He was there when Tony Harrison was cut down in the ninth round in March 2023 where Tszyu followed in his father’s footsteps to become a world champion; and then again seven months later when he spectacularly defended his title against Brian Mendoza.
But the Main Event commentator believes victory over Spence, whose six-year reign as first IBF, then WBC, then WBA welterweight champion between 2017 and 2023 cemented him as a legend in his own right, would elevate Tszyu beyond even those halcyon nights.
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“He gets the opportunity to cement his position in the history of global boxing, or even more so in the history of Australian boxing,” Damon said.
“A victory against a modern superstar, a former unified welterweight champion and one of the best fighters in or around Tim’s weight divisions of his lifetime … if Tim Tszyu wins this fight, it’ll be a victory that we talk about alongside some of the very, very best that we have ever seen on Australian soil.
“This is an event to rival anything that we’ve seen in this country.”
‘CLEARLY HERE TO WIN’: THE ‘GLOBAL SUPERSTAR’ STANDING IN TSZYU’S WAY
Damon is in no doubt that defeating Spence, who Tszyu idolised while emerging as an up-and-coming talent a decade ago, would be an “almighty task”.
And the 36-year old isn’t taking his long-awaited return to the ring lightly.
“A lot of people from Tim Tszyu’s part of the world in his team and who support him were hoping that we might get a clocked out version of Errol Spence, who was turning up just to go through the motions,” Damon said.
“That is not what we’ve got. He is here for business. He is clearly here to win this fight.
“He’s saying all the right things, he looks the part.
“This is a real fight for Tim Tszyu. Errol Spence firmly believes that he comes here and does a job on him.”
Spence’s loss in July 2023 to Terence Crawford cost him his belts, his unblemished 28-0 professional record, and, until now, his status in boxing.
There is every chance his date with Tszyu in Sydney will be his final appearance, win or lose.
If the stakes are high for the Australian, the American in the other corner might just be fighting for even more.
For Damon, a fight of this calibre can instantly wash away the last two years of heartache: or it can affirm that the Australian is a rung shy of the true greats.
“If you win this fight, it’s a shortcut to the top,” he said.
“You’re taking out a global superstar, and all of a sudden you are if not the guy, one of the guys in and around your weight division with that one win.
“But at the same time, you’ve got to beat the guy, and Errol Spence is someone who has an incredible resume.
“He’s achieved so much through a boxing career that saw him as one of the purest pressure fighters in the modern version of the sport.
“There’s a lot to gain, but there’s so much risk, because he is the real deal.
“If he does, as he appears to, have plenty left, then it’s a very, very difficult fight to win.”
“This is the biggest test of my life” | 08:18
‘IN THE RIGHT PLACE’: THE AUSSIE FACTOR GIVING TSZYU HIS CHANCE
To return with a bang, Spence needs to overcome more than 30 years of history – and in Tszyu’s own backyard.
Since Kostya changed Australian boxing forever by emigrating to Sydney in 1992, no one named Tszyu has lost a professional bout on home shores.
The eldest Tszyu finished with a perfect 17-0 record down under; Tim himself has 25 wins without defeat; younger brother Nikita is 12-0 in Australia too.
It is, quite literally, a generational run of family success – and in Damon’s eyes, it will give Tszyu a crucial edge at Afterpay Arena.
“The fact that this fight is in Australia brings Tszyu right into calculations to win it,” he said.
“If this fight was held in Texas or elsewhere in the United States, Tszyu would be a significant underdog.
“But because of that home crowd advantage, and even more than that, the comfort factor of being at home knowing that his family is undefeated in this country, and having still the scar tissue of some of those fights held on American soil, gives Tszyu every confidence and every possibility of winning this fight.
“This week, you can just tell what it means to him to be fighting in front of this crowd, to be so relaxed and ready, the right people around him, without the inconveniences of living this fight week in a casino on the other side of the world.
“That puts him in the right headspace and in the right physical place to acquit himself to the best of his capacity, which perhaps were opportunities that weren’t afforded him in some of those big fights in America.”
‘Nothing left to say!” Tszyu V Spence Jr | 05:15
‘SUPERSTAR AT HOME’: HOW TSZYU CAN TAKE THE NEXT STEP
It’s no surprise that Tim Tszyu’s career has forged a path previously trod by his father.
For both, a dominant run in Australia led to opportunities – and riches – in the United States.
Kostya took to the challenge like a duck to water. Tim … less so.
But as he awaits a fight that will shape his future in the sport, Damon believes it’s another boxing icon that Tszyu should seek to emulate should he rise, Phoenix-style, from the ashes of the first chapter of his career.
And it would bring the 31-year old just as much stature as anything he could achieve on the other side of the Pacific.
“The idea of needing to graduate to fight in the United States might no longer be a thing,” Damon said.
“From an event like this, from bringing a name like Errol Spence to Australia to fight against a local and a former world champion, we do it as well as anyone.
“No longer do you need to break through here in Australia in order to fight in America to fulfil this USA dream.
“Now, you can become a superstar at home, and you can make just as much money and develop your reputation just as broadly by doing exactly that.
“We saw Jeff Fenech do it – his major fights were here in Australia, and he became the biggest name in the history of Australian boxing.”
Tszyu’s emergence onto the world stage proves that home soil domination, provided quality combatants keep coming, is enough.
“Tim Tszyu’s had plenty of fights in the US, but his big moments, notably Tony Harrison and Jeff Horn, have been right here at home,” Damon added.
“I don’t know if he even needs to go back to the United States.
“Maybe if there was an offer that came and it had to be over there, or it was a rematch with Errol Spence and it had to be in Texas, then fine.
“But otherwise, why not just continue to put on some of the biggest events in the entire world of boxing, around the corner from your house, in front of a passionate boxing audience, with some of the best broadcasting conditions that the sport has anywhere else in the world?”
A Spence victory would leave the boxing world at Tszyu’s feet again: and this time, Damon believes, would be the most special of all.
“Tim Tszyu’s legacy is safe – he’s won a world title, he’s become a major name in the sport, and even more so, a mainstream name,” the voice of Australian boxing said.
“He was at one point one of the most Googled Australians that existed, he has the eye of the entire Australian sporting public, and obviously he has a passionate fanbase in Australia’s boxing community.
“Whatever happens in this fight, Tim Tszyu will be very fondly remembered and respected off the back of what he has achieved as a fighter, as a personality, and as a popular mainstream athlete.
“But he will want to win this fight for his boxing legacy.
“He did become a world champion, but he hasn’t had, outside of those big fights in those big moments with Jeff Horn and Tony Harrison and perhaps Brian Mendoza, the crowning moment at centre ring in Australia that he has been chasing.”
THE ‘OUT AND OUT GUNFIGHT’ LOOMING LARGE
Tszyu enters the fight in the unfamiliar position of being the underdog – a status he wasn’t faced with even in his twin defeats to Fundora.
But with both Spence and the Australian out to make a statement as well as claim victory, Damon predicts the bout could soon turn into a “gunfight”.
“There is a question mark over what version of Errol Spence we’re getting. But he’s turned up looking like a fighter who is prepared to go 12 rounds,” he said.
“I’m from Texas, bro”: Errol stands tall | 07:40
“My instinct is that whoever gets hit first is going to usher in a gunfight, and I think that both fighters at that point will be trying to prove that there is something that has been taken from their opponent.
“Once one big shot gets through, I think we’ll see both trying to finish it, and that might even happen early in the fight.
“My inclination is we might see once there is an opportunity to do so, two fighters trying to destroy each other and to cement their own future and legacy.”
Damon, too, has something at stake as he prepares to call the biggest fight in recent Australian boxing history for Main Event.
“I actually had a couple of conversations, and got a couple of messages, from his team yesterday and last night, asking me if I had any thoughts on potentially a nickname, should it be required, for the next stage of his career,” Damon said.
“I have a couple of ideas, but I would more likely just float them myself, spur of the moment, at the end of the broadcast if things go that way.”
He rose to fame as the Soul Taker. He returns now as the Phoenix.
If more chapters are to be written in a remarkable story, Tszyu’s next Damon-appointed moniker will likely be the most lasting.