As Vergil Ortiz Jr. readies to tackle Serhii Bohachuk for an interim junior middleweight title in a headline battle Saturday evening at Mandalay Bay Resort & On line casino in Las Vegas, it’s unimaginable to not deal with the elephant within the room.
On this case, that elephant seems quite a bit like a bloodied 154-pound Australian son of a boxing legend. Tim Tszyu (24-1, 17 KOs) has had among the hardest luck of any fighter in 2024, and it is just now starting to show. Tszyu fell out of a superb matchup with Ortiz because of problems from a minimize he suffered in opposition to Sebastian Fundora in March – which additionally price him his undefeated file and junior middleweight title. In July, Tszyu, lastly recovered, misplaced his likelihood to headline the primary standalone PBC card on Prime Video when opponent Erickson Lubin dropped out due to his personal harm.
However now Tszyu – the 29-year-old son of Corridor of Famer Kostya Tszyu – has an upcoming battle date (Sept. 22) at house in Australia, and should get an opportunity to commerce up from an eliminator match to a title shot, assuming destiny doesn’t intervene in an ordered matchup with belt holder Bakhram Murtazaliev.
A single skilled defeat and all of the accompanying adversity aren’t prone to dim Tszyu’s star, in line with ProBox TV “Prime Tales” analysts Paulie Malignaggi and Chris Algieri. If something, Malignaggi mentioned, Tszyu figures to return with a chip on his shoulder and a burning dedication to show he isn’t the fighter who fell to Fundora underneath extenuating circumstances.
“It’s a distinct form of mentality,” Malignaggi mentioned. “Not everyone has this type of mentality. Tszyu has it.
“I used to be choosing him to be the way forward for this weight class.”
Tszyu has constantly pushed himself by way of every stage of improvement, and he doesn’t appear all for a smooth contact to get his thoughts proper and ease again into title rivalry. Lubin is a major southpaw who has misplaced solely to Jermell Charlo and Fundora, and Murtazaliev (22-0, 16 KOs) is untested however thought of formidable. One will get the sense that Tszyu would step in in the present day for Bohachuk to face Ortiz if given the possibility.
“It’s at all times enjoyable once you’ve obtained a fighter who not solely is nice but additionally desires all of the smoke at an age the place he nonetheless hasn’t developed his full potential but,” Malignaggi mentioned.
If Ortiz bests Bohachuk on Saturday and Tszyu bounces again – maybe in opposition to Murtazaliev in September – a possible Tszyu-Ortiz matchup may solely swell to larger proportions than it had reached again in March. There’s loads of runway left for Tszyu to launch a profession that, no matter his lineage, stands alone for its high quality.
“He’s been constantly blazing his personal path, no matter who his father is and what his namesake is,” Algieri mentioned of Tszyu. “He desires to be his personal man, be his personal champion. You may see that in the way in which he strikes, the way in which he talks throughout interviews, and I feel that is simply the subsequent step to him getting his profession again on observe.”
