In an impressive punching power punching display, #1 ranked WBO junior middleweight contender Tim Tszyu (22-0, 16 KOs) took apart the upset-minded Tony Harrison (29-4-1, 21 KOs), wearing him down with heavy power shots to knock him out in round one on Saturday night in their headliner on Showtime at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The 28-year-old Tszyu started slowly, doing very little in the first two rounds, letting Harrison hit him with repeated jabs to the head.
In the third round, Tszyu shook Harrison to his boots with a looping right hand to the head. Tszyu continued to nail Harrison with hard shots for the remainder of the round and had him looking a little unnerved.
Where Harrison went wrong in the fight was his decision to try and beat Tszyu with his jab of relying on his still formidable power. Rather than utilizing his powerful right hand to try and score a knockout, Harrison was throwing all jabs and getting out-punched by Tszyu.
The heavy shots that Harrison was eating from Tszyu slowly wore him down, and he was punch drunk & exhausted by the ninth. Tszyu took advantage of the situation by hitting him with everything but the kitchen sink, sending him down on the canvas.
Miraculously, the 32-year-old Harrison got back up, but the referee realized he was too hurt and wisely stopped it. The referee could have stopped the fight before Harrison went down, and no one would argue with him because he was taking massive punishment from Tszyu and could no longer defend himself. The time of the stoppage was at 2:43 of the ninth.
Tszyu captured the interim WBO junior middleweight title with the win, but that belt is meaningless. Tim is already the WBO mandatory to undisputed 154-lb champion Jermell Charlo, and that’s more important than the interim title he just captured tonight.
This fight was more about Tszyu staying busy, getting the rest out, gaining more experience, and creating more interest in a match against Charlo later this year.
The victory for Tszyu will add more interest to the Charlo fight because he beat one of the top names in the 154-lb division, and fans were interested in the fight, thanks mainly to Harrison’s hard work of talking trash and giving a lot of interviews. Harrison worked his backside to promote the fight, and he deserves much credit for the interest the fight created.
In some ways, it’s disappointing that Harrison won’t get the opportunity to fight Jermell next in a trilogy match because those two were like a comedy team in the build-up to their two fights. There would have been much more interest from boxing fans in the U.S. in a third Charlo vs. Harrison fight.
Now, it’ll probably never happen because Harrison doesn’t often fight enough for him to come back from this loss quickly. With Tony fighting once every two years, he’s probably not going to be able to build himself up for another world title shot before he retires.
“What’s my motherf**king name? Say my motherf**king name,” said an exuberant Tszyu after the fight.
