No one likes losing. Whether you are a sportsperson, a coach, or a fan, losing can often be hard to bear.
In today’s world where success is very much the focus due to the rewards on offer, losing can be so much more painful. As frequently many fans and even some sections of the media turn on the defeated with both unnecessary and unneeded vitriol.
At almost every level of sport there would be hardly anyone who goes out to lose; something that needs to be remembered.
In some sports the competitors are completely exposed in terms of their performance and the judgements of others. In team sports a poor performance by one player can often be far less important than that of an individual competing alone.
Boxing has been labelled ‘the loneliest sport.’ There can be few more lonely. As for every boxer who climbs through those ropes they feel an intense individual responsibility not only to themselves but to their supporters, fans, family and coaches. Theirs is feeling of isolation both in training and during a fight. Each boxer has to deal with the kaleidoscope of feelings and emotions leading into a fight, and on the day of the fight.
It takes courage to climb through those ropes.
Once again leading into his bout at the weekend there was a great deal of hype surrounding the Australian Tim Tszyu and his world title rematch with Sebastian Fundora.
Despite the American having a reach advantage of 24cm and a height advantage of 23cm, it appeared that many where blinded by patriotism. Some of the pieces written flew in the face of Australia’s boxing history claiming that a victory would elevate Tszyu to a status among the greats of Australian boxing. Those who know Australian boxing felt that he still had a great deal to prove to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Fenech, Rose, Famechon and his own father Kostya.
There were others who were genuinely concerned for Tszyu. With two defeats in his past three fights some questioned how those results had affected him mentally. More importantly those fights had highlighted that Tszyu had a very poor defence against opponents able to exploit such flaws. If his coach and trainer had not addressed this, it was most definitely going to be a tough assignment once again for Tim Tszyu.
For the art of boxing is as much about not getting hit as trying to land clean punches on your opponent.
There have been many boxers over the years who have been denied a tilt at a world title due to their reputation of bing hard to hit. Sadly Tim Tszyu does not fall into that category.
Tszyu’s defence once again proved to be found wanting come the fight. While Tszyu bravely tried to attack the tall American with the long reach, many of his attempted punches were wild, rather than measured. As the very few predicted, it was his poor defence that let him down again. Fundora able to land far too many blows as Tszyu dropped his right hand.
Criticism was levelled at his support team after the first bout with Fundora for not managing to stop the bleeding to the cut Tszyu suffered. More criticism was levelled at them following the emphatic loss to Bakhram Murtazaliev.
Watching this bout they deserve criticism for they had not addressed the matter of Tszyu’s defence.
There is no excuse today with boxers able to watch video of their opponents fights. Trainers can find flaws in technique or chinks in a boxers defence and the plan is to work on those in the build up to the bout. Equally it is their job to identify flaws in their own fighter and work on reducing those. There was little evidence of that once again.
As some experts have pointed out Tszyu has very little head movement as he comes forward, and his defence is far too open, which means that he gets picked off by good fighters.
Once again there are question marks as to whether his team prepared him properly when facing such a tall and rangey boxer. Fighting a Southpaw, Tszyu’s right hand had to protect his head far more than it did. Also, a boxer wants to move right to left to avoid walking into to the left hook of a southpaw, Tszyu moved left to right and was repeatedly caught. Was this poor preparation by his team?
The worrying thing was how many of Fundora’s punches went through Tszyu’s defence. with apparent ease.
There are question marks as to whether Tim Tszyu can come back from this defeat. Should he and will he take time out and re-evaluate his career. If he choses to retire, which is unlikely, would he in time look back and question those who prepared him for these fights?
Certainly if he does continue he needs a taste of reality. People need to be more honest in relation to what he needs to do, or he is likely to get seriously hurt.
The trouble is since time immemorial Boxing is full of sycophants, hangers on who will simply tell the boxer what he wants to hear rather than what he needs to hear. As the great Sugar Ray Leonard found out when he made one comeback too many, these people make a living off you, so they want another pay day. Are they really going to tell you what you need to hear?
Tim Tszyu has been a victim of sporting contests crossing over into entertainment. The Main Event channel in Australia clearly hitched its wagon to the tail of Tsyzu’s boxing robe, and saw him as a fighter that could help establish them in Australia. After all he had a famous name, known not only to boxing fans in Australia but also Australian sporting fans.
Tszyu played along, trash-talking, and talking himself up, playing the role that would boost his profile and help put bums on seats, and also result in people paying to view his fights. The trouble is now he has been unable to find the wins when he needed them most.
To many experts the reason for that has been his preparation has not been good enough and if he has had his flaws pointed out to him, he is not listening.
Tszyu has a lot to do, and those around him should be ensuring that if he continues he works much harder on establishing a stronger defence or he is putting himself at huge risk every time he takes on another World Class opponent.
Some believe that Tszyu will get another crack at a World Title. Some of those who believe that have said that he will because potential opponents know he is a ‘name,’ but ‘a name’ that they believe they can beat.
As Former Welterweight World Champion Shawn Porter said post fight, today’s boxing is about “who you bring to the stands not what your status is, your wins and your losses.”
This is evidence of a time when sport is more about entertainment instead of ability and capability. The big flaw in this is that you are putting people at risk, as well as the reputation of the sport and its true credibility. A true sporting contest is between deserving equals and does not come down to marketability.
