‘An absolute miracle’: The 100 calls and all-night meetings behind Tim Tszyu’s Las Vegas blockbuster
It started with a whisper about an injury. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle. BRENDAN BRADFORD takes us inside the marathon effort to save Tim Tszyu’s Las Vegas debut.
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Whispers that Keith Thurman had picked up an injury filtered through the grapevine and made their way to Matt Rose’s phone on Monday afternoon in Sydney.
That first message kicked off a sleepless 24 hours filled with at least 100 phone calls and seemingly endless meetings as ‘The Towering Inferno’ Sebastian Fundora was called up to fight Tim Tszyu on March 30 in Las Vegas.
“It’s an absolute miracle what we were able to pull off in the last 24 hours,” an exhausted Rose told this masthead on Tuesday afternoon.
“But there’s times where you have to make stuff happen for Timmy, and we had to pull off the impossible.”
As the Rose brothers first digested the news on Monday in Sydney, Glen Jennings was at Liam Wilson’s residence in Las Vegas.
That’s when he got the call.
“Thurman’s out, we’re looking for a replacement for Tim.”
Jennings, who manages Tszyu and Wilson, immediately drove the five minutes to the house Tszyu has been living at for the last six weeks.
It’s not the first time Jennings has had to deliver this kind of information to Tszyu.
On Christmas Day in 2022, he told ‘The Soul Taker’ that Jermell Charlo was out of their undisputed world title showdown with a broken hand.
Tszyu took the Thurman news in stride.
“It made me pissed off, but the focus shifts and the show goes on. Simple,” Tszyu said. “We’re focusing on the next chapter.”
While Tszyu prepared for his Monday training session in Vegas, seemingly unaffected, George Rose’s heart sank.
“It felt like a Charlo moment, to be honest,” he said. “That was actually worse because it was on Christmas Day and it was for the undisputed title.
“So that was a rough one, but this had that same feeling. It was supposed to be the perfect entry into America and now it’s a harder fight.”
Meanwhile, Matt Rose and others at No Limit were on the phones, working on a miracle.
It wasn’t just a matter of getting both fighters to agree on the fight. That actually turned out to be the most straightforward part of the process.
Between midnight and 6am on Tuesday, there were discussions with broadcasters in the US and Australia, calls with Team Tszyu and Fundora’s camp, meetings with the WBO and WBC and countless emails.
At times it looked as though the whole card would fall through.
“There were moments where it became very difficult to make everything line up,” Matt Rose said. “We’re trying to line up broadcasters, fighters, and sanctioning bodies.
“We’re talking about four organisations and 20 people in rooms all over the world.”
The reworked main event will cost No Limit a fortune, but it’s nothing compared to the bath they’d have taken if the bout fell over completely.
“It’s in the millions, just because of the campaign that was put forward on Thurman,” Rose said. “It would have been devastating had we had to call it off.
“But it’s more about making the impossible happen. We just had to find a way to make it work.”
The sun was rising in Sydney on Tuesday morning when Rose was finally able to ring Tszyu and tell him that Fundora was close to being locked in.
After six stressful hours working the phones, it took Tszyu just 10 seconds to sign off on the new fight.
“He’s superhuman. Tim Tszyu’s superhuman,” Rose said. “I have fighters that if we told them eight weeks or six weeks out that they had a different opponent with a completely different style, they wouldn’t even think about doing it.
“Tim did this on 12 days.
“I’ve never met an athlete that has the mental capacity to overcome the hurdles he has in his career. He had a dog nearly bite his arm off, he’s had people pulling out.
“Then to prep for the one guy for 11 weeks, and to now fight a completely different fighter on 12 days’ notice.
“If he pulls this off it’s one of the greatest wins by an Aussie on foreign soil.”
Tim Tszyu’s history of late-notice fight drama
Tim Tszyu’s late-notice opponent change from Keith Thurman to Sebastian Fundora isn’t the first time the Aussie has had serious pre-fight dramas.
It’s almost been a theme of his professional career.
Tim Tszyu vs Jeff Horn
This was confirmed in February 2020, and originally scheduled to take place on April 22 that year.
Then Covid hit.
The fight eventually went ahead in August 2020, with Tszyu putting on a masterful performance.
Tim Tszyu vs Stevie Spark
Tszyu was supposed to fight Michael Zerafa in July 2021, but the Melburnian pulled out of the bout due to concerns around travelling during Covid.
Spark answered a late-notice call-up to fight Tszyu in Newcastle, despite strict travel restrictions still in place in New South Wales.
Tim Tszyu vs Jermell Charlo
Tszyu was just weeks away from fighting undisputed world champion Charlo in early 2023 when the American pulled out with a broken hand.
Tim Tszyu vs Carlos Ocampo
The fight nearly fell apart when Tszyu was bitten by a friend’s dog at a BBQ less than two weeks before the fight.
He was rushed to the hospital to get stitched up, but wasn’t bothered by the injury, knocking Ocampo out in 77 seconds.
Tim Tszyu vs Jermell Charlo – again
After beating Ocampo, Tszyu seemed destined to fight Charlo late last year.
But the boxing world was shocked by Charlo’s decision to move up two weight classes to fight Canelo Alvarez instead.
He was embarrassed in a one-sided 12 round decision.
Tim Tszyu vs Keith Thurman
Thurman pulled out with a biceps injury just 12 days before the fight, with Sebastian Fundora stepping in on late notice.
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