Tim Tszyu and Tony Harrison will battle for the WBO 154-lb interim belt on Showtime on Saturday, March 11th, at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia. Action will kick off at 10:45 p.m. ET on Showtime.
Interestingly, part of Showtime’s commentating team for the Tszyu-Harrison broadcast will be four-belt 154-lb champion Jermell Charlo, who the winner will face later this year. Charlo (35-1-1, 19 KOs) is out with a broken hand; otherwise, he would face #1 WBO Tszyu (21-0, 15 KOs).
Harrison (29-3-1, 21 KOs) has already split a pair with Charlo years back, and he’s been waiting for the trilogy fight to fall into his lap, and finally, he’s got the chance to earn the match instead of sitting inactive, hoping that one day he’d get it by chance.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Tszyu does against the experienced American fighter Harrison because he didn’t perform well in his last fight against Terrell Gausha last year in March, getting knocked down in the first round, and outboxed through much of the first half of the fight.
The combination of Tszyu’s power and the advanced age of the 34-year-old Gausha proved to be enough for him to rally to edge the American by the scores 114-113, 116-111, and 115-112. It wasn’t pretty, though.
If Tszyu is going to win this fight, he’ll need to fight a lot better because Harrison is a superior boxer/puncher than Gausha, and he’ll take full advantage of all the flaws that he exposed in Tim’s game if he hasn’t made the adjustments since that fight.
“I’m here on a mission,” said ‘Super Bad’ Harrison. “My only focus is on Tim Tszyu. I’m extremely confident in my abilities and in my training, but I know Tim is going to be tough competition.
“I can’t wait to see the crowd all out there to support him because I’m going to give them no choice but to love me too. I hope he’s ready for 12 grueling rounds because I’m ready to go as long as he can last.”
Harrison has been sitting for the last eleven months since beating Sergio Garcia by a 10 round unanimous decision in April of last year. Before that, Harrison had last fought in April 2021, when he battled to a 12 round draw against Bryant Perrella.
So basically, Harrison is reduced his schedule to fight just once a year since being dethroned by Jermell in 2019.
