Tim Tszyu (24-2, 17 KOs) has got to make a lot of changes in his game for him to successfully come back from his third-round knockout loss to IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) from last Saturday night at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando, Florida.
Tszyu turns 30 on November 2nd, but he’s still young enough to come back from the defeat against Murtazaliev to possibly become a world champion again. The two areas that Tszyu needs improvement on are as follows:
– Head movement
– Defensive flaws
“It’s a tough pill to swallow. They’ve got to pick the match right and pick it up once they get back to the drawing board,” said Keith Thurman to Fighthype, reacting to Tim Tszyu’s third-round knockout loss to Bakhram Murtazaliev last Saturday night.
It’s going to be really hard for Tszyu to come back without his promoter matching him against weaker opposition. How long that would take is unknown. It might require that Tszyu spend all of 2025 facing lesser guys who can’t punch, and will fold under his power. He should also consider getting a new trainer that focus on developing his boxing skills before putting him back in with someone good.
“Once I studied Bakhram, I already knew he was going to outwork Tszyu. He did that from the start with his jabs. I saw awkward hooks around the guard hooks,” said Thurman to Thaboxingvoice.
Anyone could see that Murtazaliev was going to be a big problem for Tszyu with his size, power, and work rate. This was a bigger puncher than the guys that Tszyu had been fighting, and he had a lot more ability. It’s surprising that Tszyu chose this fighter to face for a world title. He should have waited to get an eventual rematch with Sebastian Fundora, who is a lot less dangerous than Murtazaliev.
“Last night, it was one of those things where Tim got caught and couldn’t recover. He showed great bravery,” said No Limit CEO promoter Matt Rose to Jai McAllister, reflecting on Tim Tszyu’s loss to Murtazaliev. “Tim knows no other approach but to go out on his shield.”
Tszyu might have been able to recover from his first knockdown in the second round if he’d chosen to box, but he didn’t do that. He continued to go on the attack, trying to land his power shots, but he quickly dropped a second time by Murtazaliev. The third knockdown in round two was more of the same. Tszyu was trying to land shots and was caught by a right hand.
The failure by Tszyu to back off and box Murtzaliev is what led to him getting badly hurt to where he couldn’t recover. When Tszyu went out for the third round, he wouldn’t have made it through the three minutes without getting stopped, even if he’d gotten on his bike.
“Sometimes that can hamper you, too. Now, we got to go back to the drawing board and see what the options are. Obviously, he had a concussion last night. He went to the hospital. We wanted him to go for precautionary reasons.”
It’s important that Tszyu take a step back against a lower-level opponent for his next fight rather than continuing to face talented top-five-level opposition like he’s done in his last two fights. His defeats against Murtazaliev and Sebastian Fundora showed that he’s not ready to mix it with the best fighters in the 154-lb division.
Tszyu is 29, but he’d been fighting a lot of older guys and weak opposition to build his record. He’s going to have to retool his game and focus on facing a bottom tier fighter to work on becoming more of a boxer so that he doesn’t continue to lose.
Tszyu needs to fight someone like this next:
– Josh Kelly
– Brandon Adams
– Callum Walsh
– Yoenis Tellez
– Ardreal Holmes
