The co-main event might have a touch of the circus about it, but Wednesday night’s [AEDT] Superfight event at Bankwest Stadium in Sydney is a huge opportunity for Australian boxing.
At the top of that list is rising star Tim Tszyu, son of the great Kostya Tszyu, whose fight with New Zealander Bowyn Morgan is now a WBO world title eliminator, with the undefeated Australian looking to round out a year that has already included a victory over former world champion Jeff Horn.
But Tszyu and the rest of the fighting cohort, which includes former rugby league star Paul Gallen and UFC legend Mark Hunt locking horns, the crowds and those watching on via pay-per-view at home — which is reportedly tracking for record numbers in Australia — will all play a part in showing that Australia has emerged from the boxing backwaters.
“This fight will be shown in many countries and Tim Tszyu’s name will be out there and as much as this is about Tim Tszyu people will think ‘wow, Australia is open for boxing’,” respected Australian boxing analyst, Paul Upham, told ESPN. “We’ve got outdoor crowds, we can put a big audience in, and the problem with the big fights at the moment is that they can’t hold them in front of big crowds.
“Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury should have fought for a third time already, but because there’s no crowd they can’t maximise the revenue so they won’t hold the fight.”
While it would be highly unlikely for Australia to secure Fury-Wilder III, there are a number of local fighters who have already fought for, or are on the cusp of, a world title shot.
The Maloney brothers, Jason and Andrew Maloney, each had opportunities in crowdless arenas in Las Vegas this year, while George Kambosos Jr. became the mandatory lightweight contender in the WBO and IBF promotions last week after his impressive victory over Brit Lee Selby, which came on the road in his opponent’s backyard of Cardiff in October.
Kambosos has long voiced his desire for the title shot to come in Australia, ideally in his hometown of Melbourne, which has only a few active COVID-19 cases, all of which are in hotel quarantine. In fact, Australia continues to be the gold standard, along with neighbours New Zealand, for handling the coronavirus pandemic.
It means events like the Sydney Superfight are possible in front of big crowds in stadiums, sending a message out to the world that Australia should once again be a boxing destination.
“We can hold big fights, bring them to Australia, we’re open for business and that’s a good thing for the sport, whereas we’ve been seen as a bit of a backwater for many years compared with the USA and UK. This is a great opportunity for the Australian fighters: Kambosos, the Maloney brothers and even, as we saw the other night, Brock Jarvis.
“[Jarvis] was the sort of fight that made you think ‘wow, when can I go and see him again’, and Brock’s obviously a little bit more junior in his career, but he looked so good, he’s a guy you want to follow. And that’s what Australian boxing needs, guys you can follow; guys like Tim Tsyzu; you can follow Kambosos, the Maloney brothers, Brock Jarvis, and they can move toward a meaningful world title.”
While Tszyu and Morgan will take centre stage as the final fight of the night, the card has also been marketed with a familiar hook Down Under, that being that a cross-sport showdown has again been included.
Last year it was former Australian rules star Barry Hall jumping into the ring to battle rugby league great Paul Gallen, while this time UFC legend and knockout specialist Mark Hunt steps in to face the former NSW rugby league captain.
Gallen has built a professional record of 9-0 but Hunt’s pugilistic endeavours have largely recently been restricted to the Octagon, setting up an intriguing contest that is likely to pull in a few extra eyeballs, those folks who might not necessarily engage with boxing, purely because of the bout’s novelty factor.
“It’s a very unusual fight because you’ve got one guy in Paul who’s a former rugby league player at the elite level, who’s then turned to boxing and has stuck with it and I’ve noticed improvement in him,” Upham said of Gallen. “I was disappointed in his [draw] against Barry Hall, but it was probably more credit to Barry; in his very first professional fight he showed tremendous skill and with his height and reach advantage, he showed how you can beat Paul.
“When you look at Mark, elite level combat experience. Obviously he hasn’t been a boxer for a long while now, he had a couple of boxing matches a long time ago, but he has the elite level know-how and clearly he can knock guys out in mixed martial arts.
“The way I see this boxing match, I think if Paul can stay out of trouble and out of knockout range, and not get hurt in maybe the first three rounds, I think it gives him a much better chance of winning on points over the distance because I think his cardio fitness will be better over the distance than Mark’s. But clearly early on you have to give Mark the edge in knockout power and experience.”
The Tszyu name, meanwhile, remains steeped in sporting history in Australia. But when a couple of years ago it was tied only to Kostya, his son Tim has now well and truly announced himself to the wider Australian sporting community, his TKO of Horn earlier this year also propelling him into the top 10 of the various junior middleweight/super welterweight promotions.
While he has emerged from the shadow of his father, Tim Tszyu retains many of the old man’s famous traits.
“In the WBO, a win will secure that fight with Patrick Teixeira, the WBO world champion, and I think Tim proved against Jeff Horn that he’s more than just a name, that he’s a fighter in his own right,” Upham said of Tszyu.
“His father and his mother have installed such a great work ethic in him. And the advantage he has is that for a lot of guys in pro boxing it’s trial and error for them; but he’s using a method that has been perfected since his father first came out of the Soviet boxing system and perfected a technique which took him to Olympics and then into the professional ranks.
“So he’s been given the blueprint of how to become a professional world champion boxer, and you can see from his confidence that he has belief in what he is doing.”
Upham says Morgan will have to try and back Tszyu up towards the ropes in the early rounds if he’s to upset the Australian, the Kiwi boasting a 21-1 record from a career that has been fought exclusively in New Zealand.
Certainly Tszyu will enter the fight a raging hot favourite, the Australian installed at the unbackable $1.04 odds by local bookmakers tab.com.au.
And a clear, decisive victory that thrusts Tszyu into a world title showdown in the WBO will certainly be what the parochial home crowd are expecting, after earlier having watched what Gallen and Hunt have thrown up, however good or bad.
Whatever the case, it’s big night for Australian boxing and one that should remind the world that the country is worth considering for world title fights – certainly Lopez vs. Kambosos as the very least.
“They can’t make the bigger fights in America right now because of the lack of crowds, so if the money is available and Lopez can get more money fighting Kambosos in Australia, then it should happen,” Upham said. “And it is a mandatory fight so it’ll have to happen at some stage, and Bob Arum has done fights in Australia before — he put the Jeff Horn-Manny Pacquiao fight in Australia — so there is no restriction there.
“I think it will happen, if the money talks and you can make more money here, why wouldn’t you hold it here? The thing with boxing is the fighters don’t get paid, the promoters don’t get paid and the managers don’t get paid unless you actually have the fights.
“So I think it’s very encouraging and that adds to the importance of Wednesday night, showing the Americans that yes we can put fights on. We’ve got no COVID here at the moment, fingers crossed it stays that way, and there’s money to be made. Because to make the really big fights you need live audience ticket money and you need pay-per-view sales, and we can do both here.”