Tim Tszyu is critical of the laziness of modern fighters, with how many of them rarely fight and don’t take risks with their careers, settling for less. Tszyu doesn’t want to be like the ‘sometimes-I-fight’ boxers in the sport.
The fighters who become millionaires are the most guilty of laziness because they can afford to sit around, waiting for another massive payday to fall into their laps. They don’t want to stay busy because they’re too busy spending their loot, buying expensive mansions, Ferraris, and real estate.
Tszyu (24-0, 17 KOs) doesn’t want to be that way. He believes in hard work and isn’t afraid to take on challenging fights to further his career. He wants to break the mold of today’s generation of fighters by being a hard worker and always fighting the best.
This Saturday, Tszyu will take another step forward with his career when he defends his WBO junior middleweight title against Sebastian Fundora (20-1-1, 13 KOs) on March 30th on Prime Video PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This fight could lead to a match against Terence Crawford or Errol Spence Jr. for Tszyu.
The Part-Timers Need a Wake-Up Call
“A lot of fighters these days are lazy. Now I feel like every day is growth, growth, growth,” Tszyu told ESPN.
“A lot of people, they remain in the same position. Yes, they’ve got talent, but they just think that they can’t get better, and you see a lot of it. I think that’s the difference between us.”
Without Tszyu pointing fingers at some of the high-profile fighters who rarely fight, it’s pretty obvious who they are. Terence Crawford is one of them. He could have taken advantage of his fame from his win over Errol Spence last year.
No Time For Negotiation Games
If Tszyu is going to fight Crawford next, he needs to avoid spending too much time on the snail-paced negotiations with him the way Spence did.
It took those two welterweights a solid year to reach a deal, and by the time Spence fought, he was ring-rusty and at Crawford’s mercy.
Tszyu needs to be forewarned about the time he could exhaust trying to hammer out a deal with Crawford because he likes to stay active, and he won’t do that if he requires 12 to 14 months of negotiations for one fight.
Crawford, who only rarely fights, likely won’t be annoyed at a long negotiation with Tszyu. If the talks take too long, Tszyu must cut his losses and move on toward a fight against Spence or one of the other top 154-pounders, like Vergil Ortiz, Erickson Lubin, or Xander Zayas.
“I want to be a throwback fighter; just keep it old school,” said Tszyu. “I look up to those guys who actually fought in the ring a lot of the time. These are the types of things that you don’t forget. And I want to be one of those types of things that you don’t forget.”