Promoter Eddie Hearn says after watching Tim Tszyu lose back-to-back losses to IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev and Sebastian in 2024 After Sebastian Fundora, he’s not sure Tim Tszyu has reached an “elite level.”

Rebuilding Tsiyu

Hearn believes Tsyu’s promoters thought he was better than he was and put him in fights above his level. Now he has suffered a series of losses and his career is in jeopardy. Eddie said that if he were Tsyu’s promoter, he would take him back to Australia and give him a “confidence”-boosting fight. He needs to rebuild his confidence.

Tszyu (24-2, 19 KOs) was eliminated by Murtazaliyev in three rounds on Oct. 19, which was a red flag that he wasn’t fighting at an elite level. Former WBO 154-pound champion Tszyu made no adjustments after the first knockdown, brawling with one of the best fighters in the division with a poor game plan.

“I’m a big fan of Tim Tszyu. I think he’s a great fighter. Sometimes you can believe the hype of yourself as a fighter and I think they think Tim is unbeatable,” Eddie Hearn said Interview by Jay McAllister YouTube channeltalking about former WBO junior middleweight champion Tim Tszyu’s management being a little too tough on the matchup with Bakhram Murtazaliev.

“I really admire them for going into that fight and they should have gone into that fight (Bahram) because it was for a world title. But no one really wanted to fight that guy because he was a worthless Serious guy. So, if you get beat by him, you’re kind of like, but I like that they did that and I like the fact that he’s a real fighter.

“Sometimes you can get carried away. There’s a huge difference between fighting in Australia and the Australian market and then going out onto the world stage and fighting against elite opposition. You saw that against (Sebastian) Fondola Game, he (Tsyu) was very unlucky in that game, injured and all that.

Tsyu needs to develop further as a boxer because there are better fighters in the 154-pound division than he is offensively capable of. Some of them, like Murtazaliyev, Serhiy Boharchuk and Virgil Ortiz Jr., have just as much power, if not better. Disturbingly, Thiem has failed to make any adjustments when things weren’t going his way in his last two games against Bahram and Fundora. He just kept pushing forward, walking into the camera, and getting beat up.

“But you can’t just walk around at that level,” Hearn said of Tsiyu. “You have to be cuter than that and Tim is built on that. I love watching Tim Tszyu. He’s very, very exciting but you really don’t want too many fights like that to happen. It does shorten your career It will be interesting to see what they do with him when he comes back.”

Even before Thiem fought Murtazaliyev, one could tell that if he didn’t change his style and use a different approach, he was going to have problems with the guy. He thinks he can knock him out, like he did against weaker fighters like Carlos Ocampo, Tony Harrison and Steve Sparks. He found them to be much better than the flawed ones, and now his career is suffering because of his mistakes.

Elite level gap

“I think the unknown with Tim Tszyu is whether he’s really elite,” Hearn said. “He’s a world-class fighter; there’s no doubt about it. But is he really at that level? Maybe. I think the jury is out. There’s no shame in that. Sometimes, you get to that level, but You’re not good enough.”

It’s clear that Tsiyu is not an elite-level fighter, but Hearn’s failure to tell the truth is a diplomatic move. He is a contender at the mid-distance level, but nowhere near the top. If you put Tszyu up there with former 154-pound champions Serhii Bohachuk and Israil Madrimov, it would end badly for him.

“If I were his promoter, I’d probably fight him here (Australia), give him a confidence win over a top 15 guy, and then I’d go back to the States. You know one thing. He’s a must-see TV show, Tim Tszyu. He doesn’t push for opportunities just because people think they can beat him, and he’s done really well,” Hearn said.