Sasha Fierce and a ‘67 Ford Mustang: How Tim Tszyu’s mental skills coach helped him reach the top of the world
Tim Tszyu ‘used to be old school’, but as he tells BRENDAN BRADFORD, working with mental skills coach Andrew May has changed his approach to boxing and life. A ‘67 Mustang, John Wick and Beyonce have all been part of the inspiration.
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Even Tim Tszyu’s own team was shocked at how he processed last week’s bombshell news that Keith Thurman was out of their Las Vegas blockbuster.
Tszyu’s manager, Glen Jennings, said it took the boxer 30 seconds to digest the news.
Promoter Matt Rose reckons it was closer to 10 seconds.
Watch Tim Tszyu vs. Sebastian Fundora on Sunday, March 31 on Main Event on Kayo. Order the fight now
Either way, both men were left speechless at Tszyu’s seemingly unbothered approach.
“Tim Tszyu is superhuman,” Rose said. “It took him 10 seconds and he said, ‘Lock it in, I’ll get it done.’”
In reality, what looked like a 10 second decision was the culmination of two years of hard work with mental skills coach Andrew May.
An understated Sydneysider originally from Dubbo, May prefers to remain in the background when it comes to his mental skills practise with elite athletes. But his work was on full display in the hours after Tszyu’s opponent changed from the 171cm tall, 35-year-old Thurman to the 197cm tall, 29-year old Sebastian Fundora.
“It was as if nothing’s happened,” Jennings said, as he watched Tszyu training in Las Vegas hours after the news broke. “Within 30 seconds I’d lost him to conversation, and he was moving on.”
A one-time middle distance runner and strength and conditioning coach, May has worked closely with teams and individual sportspeople, including Tszyu, the Manly Sea Eagles and the Waratahs.
May had such an impression on Manly’s Jason Saab that the winger made a point of contacting him outside of the team’s official sessions last year.
Although he has worked closely with Tszyu for nearly two years, May is quick to deflect too much credit, instead pointing to the boxer’s own dedication to this side of his training.
“He’s done all the reps and sets, so when this happens, initially he’s rattled – like anybody would be – but he goes through his thoughts and emotions and processes it,” May tells this masthead in a rare interview.
The pair first linked up following Tszyu’s 2022 win over Terell Gausha.
“I used to be old school, man,” Tszyu tells this masthead. “Just tough, you know?”
“I never really had problems, but since working with him, I was able to understand that there are certain situations where you are feeling different moods.
“It’s all about controlling yourself.”
A self-confessed revhead, Tszyu says an analogy May made about fast cars left a lasting impression.
“He made me picture that I’m a ‘67 Mustang – which is my favourite car – and you can create whatever engine you want inside,” Tszyu says.
“But right now Andrew said, ‘You’re sitting on a bunch of second hand re-treads and you’re fishtailing all over the place. Our goal is to get you running on high-end Mickey Thompson tyres’.
“It’s about adding all these little things together – breathing, learning how to have an alter-ego, being able to control situations and learning how to control the puzzle of, not just boxing, but life.
“It works magic, man.”
The choice of car only made their partnership more solid.
“I showed him a picture of this ’67 Mustang – Eleanor – which is the car Nicolas Cage drives in Gone in 60 Seconds,” May says. “He just goes, ‘F**k, how did you know this? This is the car I wanna get when I get one day’.”
Tszyu’s alter-ego is something else they’ve worked on extensively too.
“As soon as you get into the ring, you’ve got a switch,” Tszyu explains. “My mum has seen it, and my missus has seen it.
“You’re in killer mode, and it’s a different me.
“In my normal daily life, I don’t like to be that person. It’s scary sometimes being in that mindset.
“It’s like John Wick. You just want to take every f***er out – just whoever’s in front of me. There is no mercy, and you live by that.
“That’s the transition you have to work on.”
That’s also where Beyonce’s stage character, Sasha Fierce, comes in.
“Beyonce is an introvert, so when she was doing media interviews and performing, it was creating a lot of stress,” May says. “So she created an alter ego to step into – Sasha Fierce – and I gave Tim an article to read about her.
“We’ve created a shift for Tim to be an elevated version of himself, and that’s an awareness of what he needs to be, whether he’s doing a media interview or promoting a fight.”
Tszyu wasn’t exactly the most obvious candidate to dive into mental skills training.
This is a kid who grew up doing pre-dawn road runs alongside his father Kostya, and if he wasn’t at the front door with his shoes on at 4:30am, there’d be extras.
“It was all about growing character,” Tszyu told this masthead in 2021. “It was about your mind, and the fact that you had to do all this stuff that you didn’t want to.”
Part of May’s job has been to harness some of those experiences, while simultaneously giving Tszyu the framework to break free of them.
“He’s done a lot of work on taking a bunch of great skills and strengths from his past, and developing some new skills that will help him evolve and not be ‘Kostya’s son’ but be ‘Tim’,” he says.
“When he stood up after the Tony Harrison fight and said, ‘What’s my motherf***ing name?’ I was really proud because that was a huge step for Tim in his identity.
“The past has shaped you, the present is your time, and the big opportunity is legacy and the impact he can have on the sport.”
May prefers not to give interviews about athletes or teams he works with, and it was only on Tszyu’s insistence that he agreed to this one.
It’s a mark of Tszyu’s own evolution, and of how far the sporting world has come in the past decade, that Tszyu felt comfortable enough to urge May to speak.
“There’s three components you can train, and that’s your craft – boxing – the second is your body, which is strength and conditioning, and the third is your mind,” May says. “I think it’s in that order.
“You need to be fit, fast, powerful and strong, then you can work on your mental skills and stop fishtailing.
“That’s why the car analogy works so well with Tim.
“Just like you go to the gym for your body, you can do the same for your mind in a non-pressurised environment.
“So all the work we’ve done in the last two years has been future-proofing Tim to adapt to change, take ownership of who he is, and to take big risks.”
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