As former unified welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. sets for his return following a three-year layoff, Australian star Tim Tszyu is focused on doing one thing on Saturday — sending the future Hall of Famer into retirement.
Spence (28-1, 22 KOs) will headline a PBC pay-per-view card from Afterpay Arena in Sydney in his first fight since a one-sided welterweight unification loss to Terence Crawford in 2023. The 36-year-old southpaw will take on Tszyu (27-3, 18 KOs), a former junior middleweight titleholder, in a 12-round middleweight bout that was bumped up from an original 158-pound catchweight at the request of Spence.
While things began cordial between the two fighters when the bout was announced during a Las Vegas press conference in May, it was Spence’s refusal to shake hands that escalated the beef between him and Tszyu, the 31-year-old son of Hall of Famer Kostya Tszyu.
“Errol is Errol. He does things his own way,” Tszyu said at Thursday’s final press conference. “I respect what he’s done and achieved but there comes times in people’s journey where they’ve had enough. I think I’ve picked the right time to face Errol. I want to punch him everywhere as hard as I can. It’s not personal, but of course I want to make this his last fight.”
Spence, who will be backed by legendary coach Ronnie Shields after a public fallout with ex-trainer Derrick James, hasn’t committed yet as to whether he will continue his career after the Tszyu fight but has maintained that his comeback isn’t about money as much as it’s about authoring the final chapter to his career on his own terms.
“There are definitely a lot of questions about how I’m going to come back,” Spence said. “I’m ready and I’ve been training hard. There’s no pressure on me because I’m not trying to prove something to anybody. I’m looking to prove to myself that I still have it.
“This is going to be a very entertaining fight. If you’ve seen my fights, you know that’s what I do. [Tszyu] is always in entertaining fights, so it makes for a perfect clash. I see myself being victorious.”
Even though Spence has never fought at middleweight before, let alone even 154 pounds, his pedigree as a former decorated champion, 2012 U.S. Olympian and pound-for-pound stalwart has him as the slightest of betting favorites in what’s expected to be a competitive and action-packed fight.
For as many questions that remain regarding how much Spence has left after years of difficult fights, hard cuts to 147 pounds and recoveries from multiple car accidents, the same could be said about the current form of Tszyu, who enters his first fight new trainer, countrymen and Hall-of-Fame boxer Jeff Fenech following a two-fight experiment with Cuban coach Pedro Diaz in Miami.
The reason why Tszyu is now linked with his third trainer in the past 12 months alone likely had a lot to do with his spectacular fall from grace, which included a trio of physically damaging losses to 154-pound titleholders Sebastian Fundora (twice) and Bakhram Murtazaliev over the last two years.
Even though Tszyu has bounced back with a pair of decision wins in the last eight months over a pair of unbeaten yet far from heralded opponents, plenty of questions remain about his punch resistance, head movement and ability to follow a gameplan given his love to stand and trade once his fights begin to heat up.
“When the timing is right, it’s right. I feel like this is the perfect timing for a perfect story,” Tszyu said. “I’ve had my failures in my career but I’ve always been able to bounce back and keep grinding. It’s the pursuit of achieving something hard. I think this is the biggest test of my life since I was a young kid. I’ve always fought for a moment like this.
“This doesn’t feel like a normal fight. This is a Super Bowl to me.”
Spence, a boxer-puncher who has proven able to box from the outside just as well as he can mix it up in close, has maintained throughout the build to his comeback fight that he’s expecting nothing short of a war.
“I see his mentality, [Tszyu] is coming in no holds barred and ready to fight,” Spence said. “He’s the pride of Australia and he’s coming to defend it. He knows his back is against the wall, so he has got to come with it all.”
Prediction
This has all the makings for a “loser leaves town” type fight between two flawed former champions looking to eliminate the other from overall contention. But it’s the fact that both have endured so much physically in recent fights — not to mention the age and layoff staring down Spence — that makes it difficult to know who has more left in the tank.
The good news, from an entertainment standpoint, is that we are likely to see fireworks, regardless of who gets their hand raised. But I wouldn’t worry about the moving up of two weight classes for Spence, who has always been a huge welterweight, as much as I would the chin of Tszyu after Fundora knocked him around the ring in their 2025 rematch.
While I’m not suggesting Spence has enough left for a sustained title run at 154 pounds or even another big fight after Tszyu, I do believe his skillset and advantages in both technique and defense will be enough to best Tszyu, even in a shootout.
Yes, Spence was beaten from pillar to post by Crawford three years ago. But Spence also fought the best boxer of this era and is now readily admitting he entered that fight with fractured ribs and chose to go forward with the bout in order to provide long-term financial freedom for his family.
Now that he has had time to heal both mentally and physically, Spence should find the opportunity to close out one of the most successful modern careers on his own terms with a stoppage victory. While Tszyu has plenty of dog in him, his consistent inability to move his head or properly set up his punches should, once again, be his undoing.
Pick: Spence via TKO7
