Tim Tszyu wasn’t at the top of Errol Spence Jr.’s hit list.
The American fighter, for years a staple at the box office in the United States, returns to the ring in July after more than 1,000 days on the sidelines as he recovered from a beating Terence Crawford gave him in one of the most significant welterweight battles of the modern era.
The fighters confirmed their July 25 super welterweight showdown, scheduled to take place atop a PBC on Prime Video pay-per-view in Australia, earlier this month.
Though Spence is more decorated than Tszyu, they have endured a similar trough, with Tim having to rebound from his own beating — one Fundora gave him.
“There’s no knock on Tszyu for losing to Sebastian Fundora,” Spence said at the time, in a statement sent to Boxing Social. “Fundora would be a hard opponent for anybody. He’s so tall and now he’s using his distance and his range. Tszyu put on a hard fight and never gave up.”
And while it would be a hard fight for anybody, it was a fight he was still targeting for his comeback.
“[Tszyu] wasn’t the best that I could get,” said Spence to Fox Sport. “I’m not crazy, but I bar nothing. So I was looking at Fundora, I was looking at top names.”
The 36-year-old fighter is banking on being fresher than his years, as, outside of the brutal loss to ‘Bud’ Crawford, he scored considerable wins over Kell Brook, Mikey Garcia, and Danny Garcia, among others.
His away trip to Australia against Tszyu, he intimated, will be a return to form.
“I’m the type of guy I really don’t believe in ring rust,” Spence said. “If I look good in the gym for nine, ten weeks, why I can’t look good in the fight? That’s a mental thing.
“I feel like come fight night I’m gonna show everybody that ring rust is not a thing. It’s not a thing for me at all.”
