Tim Tszyu says “reality hits” tonight for WBA junior middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora in their rematch at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Tszyu (25-2, 18 KOs) states that it’s going to be a “whole new story” for what he has planned for Fundora (22-1-1, 14 KOs).
Tim Tszyu’s New Plan
Tim says he’s going to show his boxing skills in this fight and hit him with precise sniper shots. He’s not going to blindly attack like last time. The way he describes his style, he’s going to follow the blueprint that Brian Mendoza created for defeating Fundora.
That approach involved Medoza eating a lot of hard shots from Fundora, but landing one or two big punches in each. Eventually, Mendoza knocked him out in the seventh round with a left hook.
“On Saturday night, reality hits. He should have done it the first time. It’s going to be a whole new story,” said Tim Tszyu to the media about Sebastian Fundora. “He was saying about my PTSD. I feel he has PTSD with what [Brian] Mendoza did to him.”
Tszyu sounds childish saying Fundora is the one with PTSD, not him. He sees Tim as having that problem because he exhibited signs of that mental health condition during his fight against Bakhram Murtazaliev after losing to Fundora last year. He fought like he was still traumatized by the cut that he’d suffered, and was quickly destroyed in three rounds by Murtazaliev.
“He still thinks about it. To get knocked out cold like that. it takes a lot out of you. Even though I was stopped by Bakhram, I made sure to get back up each time. He [Fundora] wasn’t up. He was gone. Of course,” said Tszyu when asked if Fundora is worried about his power. As soon as I hit him, he started jabbing. That’s why I invite him for war.”
Tszyu wants the fight to be a war, but Fundora is likely going to use his jab as his main weapon tonight. Tim’s power is too much for Sebastian to want to go to war with him.
Still, his jab is like a power punch, and it’s going to be difficult for Tszyu to deal with it all night. If Tim gets cut, it’ll be interesting to see how he deals with seeing his blood. He stressed out last time he fought Fundora after being cut in round two.
“For the Bakhram fight, I woke up [after rehydrating] and I didn’t feel rejuvenated. This time, it’s going to be a whole different story,” said Tszyu.
Tim is saying that now about it being a different story against Fundora, but it may be the same old story when he gets inside the ring. He still has to deal with the long reach and the height of the 6’6″ Fundora.
Those were the things that gave him problems last time. It wasn’t the cut that he suffered in the second round. It was the long reach, the powerful jab, and the uppercuts that Fundora was hitting him with.
