Terence Crawford says Tim Tszyu took IBF junior middleweight champion Bakhram Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) lightly, convincing other fighters he wanted to face him, and paid the price for being defeated in the third round in an upset loss on Saturday night. in Orlando, Florida.
This fight was a 100% obliteration by Mutazaliev who had a Foreman-esque on top of that with the knockdown an overwhelmed Tszyu to the canvas three times in the 2nd round and once in the 3rd round.
It came with Tszyu looking like a ragdoll, being rattled by a heavy bombardment of highly explosive punches in the third. Tszyu was gone and was about to go down for a fifth time in the fight when his corner threw out the white towel of surrender.
Did Tszyu take Murtazaliev lightly?
Tszyu did not seem to take Murtazaliev “light” at all. He trained hard for the fight and looked physically in better shape than he had in his previous fight against Sebastian Fundora last March. His problem was to pick a fight with the artist Murtazaliev. It was a stupid move because he lacked the defense, mobility, speed and size to fight this kind of battle against this guy.
Crawford, who holds the WBA 154-lb title, says Murtazaliev was right “too loud“for the former WBO champion Tszyu last night. He stopped him four times in the three-round massacre on the Premier Boxing Champions card at the Caribe Royale Resort. Three fights came in the second, and Tszyu was finished quickly in turn 3.
The way Mutazaliev looked last night, he had beaten Crawford too. He’s too strong, aggressive, and has too much youth for the 37-year-old Omaha, Nebraska native, who narrowly dropped his last fight at 154 against Israil Madrimov last August. If it had been Madrimov that Crawford had faced, he would now be in the same boat as Tszyu, in retirement.
The extra time didn’t help
Crawford didn’t like the way Tszyu was “timed out” before the start of the third round when the ringside doctor examined him in the ring. That seemed to take forever, but it didn’t change the outcome. Tszyu was too far from that point, and could probably have been given an hour, but he was still defeated by Bakhram.
Whatever chance Tszyu had to recover, he charged forward at the start of the round, throwing powerful right hands, hoping to catch Murtazaliev with one of them to put the fight away.
Murtazaliev took advantage of the punch-drunk Tszyu sending him to the canvas with a vicious right hand to the head. That punch looked similar to the clubbing right that a young George Foreman used to defeat Joe Frazier in their first fight in 1973.
Tszyu went down in the same way. When Tszyu stood up, he looked at Murtaliev and his facial expression was pure shock. It was like he didn’t do what was happening to him.
Murtazaliev then quickly finished off the stunned Tszyu, nailing him with powerful shots that sent him stumbling around the ring, staggering to his feet, only to fall. Tszyu’s corner then wisely swung into the towel to save before he could be pole-axed by the powerful Murtazaliev.
The implosion of Tszyu’s career
The loss puts Tszyu’s career in bad shape as it will be almost impossible for him to come back from this defeat. What boxing fans fail to realize is that Tszyu wasn’t that good to begin with.
Even before Tszyu’s loss to Fundora earlier this year on March 30, his career best wins had come against flawed fighters like Carlos Ocampo, Tony Harrison, Brian Mendoza, Terrell Gausha and Steve Spark. Those guys weren’t top elite fighters at 154.
Tim thought he had it easy. He took this guy lightly and was worried about other fighters.
— Terence Crawford (@terencecrawford) October 20, 2024
