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Promoter Eddie Hearn says he is unsure if Tim Tsziu is “at an elite level” after watching his 2024 back-to-back defeats to IBF junior middleweight champion Bahram Murtazali and Sebastian Fundora.
Rebuild Tsziu
Hearn believes that Tsziu’s promoters believed he was better than he actually was and put him in fights that were above his level. Now he has suffered back-to-back defeats, and his career is in jeopardy. Eddie says if he were Tsziu’s promoter, he would bring him back to Australia and give him a confidence-boosting fight. He needs to be rebuilt in terms of his self-confidence.
The way Tsziu (24-2, 19 KOs) was obliterated by Murtazaliev on Oct. 19 in three rounds was a sign that he is not fighting at an elite level. Former WBO 154lb champion Tsziu made no adjustments after the first knockdown, and entered the fight with a poor game plan, brawling with one of the best punchers in the division.
“I’m a big fan of Tim Tsziu. I think he’s a great fighter. Sometimes you can put a little bit of faith in your popularity as a fighter, and I think they thought Tim was unbeatable,” Eddie Hearn told Jai McAllister’s YouTube channeltalking about the management of former WBO junior middleweight champion Tim Tsziu who matched him a little too hard against Bahram Murtazaliev.
“I really admire that they took that fight, and they needed that fight (Bakhram) because it’s for the world championship. But nobody really wants to fight that guy because he’s a serious no-nonsense guy. So if he beats you, you’re kind of like, but I like the fact that they did that, and I like the fact that he’s a real fighter.
“Sometimes you can get carried away. There is a huge difference between fighting in Australia and the Australian market and then going on the world stage and facing elite opposition. “You saw that against (Sebastian) Fundora, and he (Zhu) didn’t have much luck in that fight with the injury and everything,” Hearn said.
Tsiu will have 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, if not better, power. Worryingly, Tim didn’t make any adjustments in either of his last two fights against Bahram and Fundora when things were going badly for him. He just kept plowing forward, getting punched and getting beat.
“But you can’t just run through people at that level,” Hearn said of Tsziu. “You have to be sweeter than that, and Tim is built on that. I love watching Tim Tsziu. He’s very, very exciting, but you don’t want too many fights like that. It will really shorten your career and it will be interesting to see what they do with him when he comes back.”
It was clear before Tim’s fight with Murtazali that he was going to have trouble with this guy if he didn’t change his style and use a different approach. He thought he could knock him out like he did against smaller fighters like Carlos Ocampo, Tony Harrison and Steve Spark. He discovered that they were much better than those flawed guys, and now his career is suffering because of his mistake.
The difference in the elite level
“I think the unknown about Tim Tsziu is whether he’s really elite level,” Hearn said. “He’s a world-class fighter; there is no doubt about that. But is he really at that level? Maybe. I think the jury is out. There is no shame in that. Sometimes you get to that level and you’re not good enough.”
Obviously, Tsziu isn’t an elite-level fighter, but Hearn is being diplomatic about not telling it like it is. He’s a mid-range contender-level fighter, but nowhere near the top. If you put Tsziu with former 154lb champions Serhii Bohachuk and Israil Madrimov, it would end badly for him.
“If I was his promoter, I’d probably fight him here (Australia), and get him confident against a top-15 guy, and then come back to America.” You know one thing. He must be watching TV, Tim Tsziu. “He’s not going to struggle to get opportunities because people think they can beat him, and he’s great to watch,” Hearn said.
