By Keith Idec
Tim Tszyu wouldn’t have stepped aside once, let alone four times.
The former WBO junior middleweight champion considers the circuitous route Bakhram Murtazaliev took to winning the IBF 154-pound crown six months ago peculiar because the unbeaten Russian waited more than four years for his title shot. After winning an IBF elimination match in November 2019, Murtazaliev accepted step-aside fees four times and accompanying tune-up fights for purses that went well into seven figures combined.
Murtazaliev’s cooperation enabled Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions to arrange three straight 154-pound championship unification fights for Jermell Charlo, for whom Murtazaliev was the mandatory challenger. Tszyu took the opposite approach when he petitioned the WBO to fight for its interim junior middleweight title after Charlo’s hand injury postponed and ultimately canceled their fight, which was scheduled for January 2023 in Las Vegas.
“Yeah, he’s made a couple bucks,” Tszyu told Boxing News when asked about Murtazaliev, his opponent Saturday night in Orlando, Florida. “Not the same way that I would do it. My attitude’s different. I wouldn’t take any step-aside money. I find it a bit strange with fighters that financially, while it makes sense to him … he’s milked it. Let’s just say that.”
Houston’s Charlo (35-2-1, 19 KOs) won the IBF belt from Jeison Rosario in September 2020, when Charlo knocked out the Dominican Republic’s Rosario in the eighth round of their title unification fight. Murtazaliev, who will make his first defense of the IBF belt versus Tszyu, defeated journeyman Manny Woods (then 16-9-1) by fourth-round technical knockout on the Charlo-Rosario undercard at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Charlo later battled Brian Castano in two more title unification clashes, before he moved up two weight classes and suffered a lopsided loss to Canelo Alvarez in their 12-round fight for Alvarez’s super middleweight titles a year ago at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The IBF eventually stripped Charlo and ordered a bout between Murtazaliev and Germany’s Jack Culcay for its unclaimed junior middleweight title. Murtazaliev knocked out Culcay in the 11th round of their April 6 bout in Berlin.
The IBF later ordered Murtazaliev to fight Erickson Lubin, its third-rated contender. Lubin turned down the bout because he had a hand injury that would’ve prevented him from training.
The IBF then offered this title shot to the fourth-ranked Tszyu, who happily accepted it in the aftermath of his bloody, split-decision defeat to Sebastian Fundora on March 30 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The bout between Murtazaliev (22-0, 16 KOs), of Glendale, California, and Sydney’s Tszyu (24-1, 17 KOs) will be the main event of a three-bout stream on Prime Video that is scheduled to start at 1 a.m. GMT (8 p.m. ET) from Caribe Royale Orlando.
“I expect it to be like a dogfight,” said Tszyu, who is listed as a 7-1 favorite over Murtazaliev by most sportsbooks. “You hit him, he hits you back – like an action-packed type fight. [He’s] someone who doesn’t give up. They’re hard to break and that always presents a tremendous task.”
