Controversy is currently afoot in Australia, this ahead of Tim Tszyu’s scheduled fight with Joey Spencer. The two are set to fight this weekend, in Newcastle, Australia, but Spencer is fuming having learned that all three scoring officials for the bout will be Australian. Spencer is now threatening to walk away. Interestingly, another Australian fighter, Michael Zerafa – who has long since had a verbal beef with Tszyu – has offered to step in at short-notice to fight Tszyu if Spencer does indeed go home.
Tszyu, 24-2(17) recently stated that the Spencer fight is the most important fight of his career, a fight he absolutely has to win. Tszyu has not boxed since losing back-to-back against Sebastian Fundora and Bakhram Murtazaliev. Spencer of Michigan is currently 19-1(11) and the Tszyu fight is the biggest of his career by some way.
But will the fight actually happen now? Three hometown judges is obviously a glaringly unfair advantage for any fighter, and Tszyu is now under pressure to stand up and call for neutral judges. Is Spencer right to walk out of the fight if neutral judges are not put in place? Spencer’s team have said they would never have signed on for the fight if they knew they would end up fighting an Australian, in Australia, with three Australian judges working the fight.
With just days to go, this issue has to be sorted out. Both Tszyu and Spencer want to fight, with both men having worked hard in the gym, but this fight, like any fight, should be fought on a level playing field. Let’s see what happens, but Zerafa has said he’ll come in as a late sub to get it on with Tszyu, a fighter he has often criticised.
Spencer said he is now letting his team sort out this whole mess:
“I’ve let my team know my position…….and I’ve put everything in their hands now,” he said to Fox Sports in Australia. “Tim has to ask himself if he wants Sunday’s fight to be fair. Because at the end of the day, we had an agreement, I was promised there would be two independent judges.”
“This isn’t the way we do things,” Spencer added.
Indeed, this just isn’t fair and surely common sense will prevail, with at least two neutral judges being brought in to work Sunday’s fight.
