Tim Tszyu will defend his championship title against Keith Thurman

One of the brightest stars of modern professional boxing, Tim Tszyu, the son of Russian legend Konstantin Tszyu, who competes for Australia, will defend his junior middleweight title (up to 69.9 kg) according to the World Boxing Organization (WBO) in the spring against another superstar – an American Keith Thurman. True, the peak of Thurman’s career occurred in the middle of the last decade, and over the past four and a half years he has only entered the ring once.

ESPN reported that Tim Tszyu will defend the WBO champion title in the up to 69.9 kg category in a fight against Keith Thurman. The match will take place on March 30 in Las Vegas and will be the first under the contract signed by the major promotion company PBC with Amazon’s Prime Video. The service became PBC’s primary broadcast partner following Showtime’s exit from the boxing market in 2023.

The collaboration will begin with a very bright event, which brought together two fighters with an excellent background. At the age of 29, Tim Tszyu has acquired the reputation of a full-fledged superstar. His record includes 24 victories in 24 fights, and the vast majority of them were extremely convincing. This also applies to three fights with strong opponents that took place last year. Tszyu knocked out Tony Harrison in the ninth round, Carlos Ocampo in the first, and defeated Brian Mendoza on points with a huge advantage.

True, it was expected that after winning against Mendoza, the Australian would have a more status match. Negotiations about his meeting with American Jermell Charlo, who once held all four championship belts – WBO, World Boxing Council (WBC), World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation (IBF) – in the junior middleweight, have been going on for quite some time. Moreover, at the end of 2022, it already looked almost agreed upon. But Charlo, who initially took a long break due to a hand injury, made an unexpected feint. Having recovered, he preferred the more financially profitable fight with the enormously popular Mexican Saul Alvarez to the fight with Tszyu. Moreover, on enemy territory – in the super middleweight division (up to 76.2 kg), in which Alvarez is also the absolute champion. The WBO did not like this jump, and she announced in advance that in any case, no matter what happened to Charlo, she would give her title to the official challenger who had been waiting for a long time, that is, Tszyu. He lost to Charlo Alvarez, and still avoids the match against Tszyu in the “native” category for both.

From the point of view of the sonority of the biography, Keith Thurman is a completely adequate replacement for Jermell Charlo. True, there is one nuance. Thurman, now 35, had made waves in the previous decade. He held the championship title in the up to 66.7 kg category for a long time and dealt with famous welterweights like Luis Collaco, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia. And in 2019, Thurman faced the great Filipino Manny Pacquiao. That fight ended in his only defeat in his professional career, but it was almost equivalent to success. Pacquiao’s win, despite the fact that he knocked down his opponent, was given by only two of the three judges, and on another judge’s card Thurman had an advantage.

But then something strange happened. Keith Thurman, who had surgery on his injured elbow before the fight with Manny Pacquiao, stopped competing after it. He has repeatedly denied rumors that he has decided to say goodbye to boxing, but over the past four and a half years he has entered the ring only once. In February 2022, Thurman fought with former world super lightweight champion (up to 63.5 kg) Mario Barris, who had also previously ruined his record with a misfire in a match with Gervonta Davis. Keith Thurman won on points in this fight without any problems.

Alexey Dospehov