By Adam Baskin: Tim Tszyu has now been officially elevated to full WBO junior middleweight champion and will be making his first defense of his title against the huge puncher Brian Mendoza this month on October 14th on Showtime at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, Broadbeach in Sydney, Australia.
This is Tszyu’s moment to shine. If he beats Mendoza, he’s going to receive a lot of praise and could lead to fights against Terence Crawford or Errol Spence Jr.
Mendoza (22-2, 16 KOs) will be a real test for the 28-year-old Tszyu, considering he’s coming off a seventh round knockout victory over Sebastian Fundora last April and is now in the prime of his career at 29.
The Las Vegas resident Mendoza has won his last three fights since losing to Jesus Ramos by a ten round unanimous decision in 2021. In 2019, Mendoza was beaten by the unheralded Larry Gomez by an eight round split decision.
Mendoza has looked like a different fighter in his last three fights, beating Fundora, Jeison Rosario, and Benjamin Whitaker. It’s safe to say that if Mendoza fought Ramos & Gomez, it would be a different story.
The previous champion, Jermell Charlo, chose to face Canelo Alvarez for his undisputed super middleweight championship last Saturday night in Las Vegas rather than make an ordered mandatory defense against Tszyu (23-0, 17 KOs).
“Tim Tszyu is the [new World Boxing Organization 154-lb] champion,” WBO president Francisco “Paco” Valcarcel said to Mike Coppinger today. “[The fight between] Tim Tszyu and [Brian] Mendoza is for the title..
Last Saturday, Jermell made it known to the fans that he was going to focus on getting the most “money” he could with the remainder of his career and that didn’t feel motivated to try and recapture his WBO title from the Tszyu vs. Mendoza.
However, it’s possible that Jermell could change his mind if he fails to get the big-money fights that he was hoping to get because Terence Crawford has already said he’s not interested in fighting him due to the passive way he fought against Canelo.
It’s not as if Jermell didn’t know that he had his WBO mandatory Tszyu waiting for a title shot because the fight had been ordered last year. Jermell & Tszyu were supposed to fight earlier this year on January 28th, but the 33-year-old Charlo suffered a hand injury.
Finally, the WBO gave Jermell a deadline of September 30th to defend against Tszyu, but he chose to move up to 168 to challenge Canelo for his four belts and pick up a massive payday.
After losing the fight to Canelo by a twelve round decision, Jermell complained at the post-fight press conference about losing his WBO title, saying that he wanted to speak to someone with the organization about it.
