By Robert Segal: #1 WBO Tim Tszyu predicts that he’ll be bigger than IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo when he faces the “old man” on January 28th in their headliner on Showtime Championship Boxing at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas.
Tszyu (21-0, 15 KOs) has the size and the power to dethrone Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs), but what he’s lacking is in defense, speed, and experience departments.
This fight could come down to which of these two big sluggers lands their best shots early in the contest. Tszyu will need to get to Jermell’s chin as early as possible to keep from getting mowed down.
Charlo didn’t use to be a knockout artist earlier in his career, as he was more of a boxer from 2007 to 2015. Since 2016, Charlo has been knocking out most of his opponents with his powerful shots and the traps he sets.
In Tszyu’s last fight, he was knocked down in the first round by non-puncher Terrell Gausha last March.
If not for Gausha’s low power, Tszyu might not have seen the final because he was getting hit like clockwork by the 2012 U.S. Olympian in that fight.
Charlo is all-around a better fighter than Gausha and a much bigger puncher. Assuming that Tszyu hasn’t made improvements on defense, he’ll need a good chin to withstand all the big shots that Jermell will be landing in the fight.
“When they see me from the outside, they don’t realize the strength & power I possess when I step inside. What you see from the outside is completely different,” said Tim Tszyu to Sporting News Australia.
“I’ll be bigger than Charlo. You seen his little waist? The difference is in the core. My mind is ready, and I can’t wait to get the job done.
“I can’t wait because I’ve got this fighter in front of me in my next fight that’s a hard puncher, and that gives me a switch. I can’t wait to show that switch,” said Tszyu.
“This man called me an ‘old man.‘ I never thought I was an old man; I’m young, handsome, and look good, skin-tight. I don’t know what kind of old man that he’s talking about,” said Jermell Charlo during Tuesday’s kickoff press conference in reaction to being described by Tszyu that he’s an old man.
Unless Tszyu, 28, has made a vast improvement with his defense, he will probably not last long under heavy bombardment from the 32-year-old Jermell next month.