Inside story: How the Tim Tszyu camp found out about Michael Zerafa’s decision – and the brutal reaction
Tim Tszyu could not comprehend what he’d been told. This is the inside story of Michael Zerafa’s staggering decision – and the brutal fallout.
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“You’re f---ing around aren’t you? I don’t believe you.”
Tim Tszyu could not comprehend what he’d just been told by promoter Matt Rose over the phone.
He was walking around Newcastle with his manager Glen Jennings when the call came through at 3.14pm on Wednesday.
“He said ‘The fight’s off’. I thought ‘This can’t be possible’,” Tszyu said.
Rose, from his home in Wagga Wagga, had a sick feeling in his stomach on Friday when alerted by Michael Zerafa’s camp that they were having “a teams meeting” at 2pm.
Rose and his brother George run No Limit Boxing, promoters of the July 7 event.
“We’d done everything we possibly could to make it happen, and then I was told they were having a team meeting,” Rose said.
“George was really concerned that they were even having a meeting, and he put it on my radar that they could pull out and we’d need to find someone else.
“I still didn’t believe it could happen though. Then I got the call, at 3pm, and they informed me they wouldn’t be coming on Wednesday.
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“Making that phone call to Tim, that was the toughest call I’ve had to make in the sporting world. Because at the start, Glen and I had to really convince Tim to take this fight.
“He wasn’t interested in giving Zerafa a shot after the years of trash-talking he’d done.
“Then, after he’d agreed and all the sacrifices he’s made to prepare, it was gut-wrenching to have to tell him the news.”
Tszyu, who overhauled his plans to be based on the Gold Coast when Covid-19 lockdowns began and relocated to Newcastle two weeks ago, reflects bitterly on the stunning backflip that unfolded.
“I was confused, you’re so focused on one person, you’ve just got that one guy on your mind, and what you’re going to do to him, all the things you’ve working on for the past two months,” Tszyu said.
“And then it changes, you’re in the dark, you don’t know what you’re doing, who you’re fighting, it’s the unknown.
“Once you zoom into one person, that’s it. He is your primary focus. For the next eight weeks it’s everything you’ve got to do to beat him, that’s your goal in everyday life, every meal you eat, every drink you drink, every part of your daily routine is based on this one opponent and then it disappears.
“Then you feel this uncomfortable feeling.
“When he goes to sleep, when he’s by himself, all alone at night, he’s a very insecure man.
“He needs people around him. Maybe his team broke. Something happened.
“This is not going to disappear. This will be the worst decision of his career, I don’t think there’s any coming back from this.
“You are gifted this one opportunity that you should take with both hands. He let it go, without thinking of the consequences.”
In the end, the Zerafa camp wanted a guarantee that they would not need to quarantine upon return to Melbourne should Newcastle be named a Covid hotspot by Victorian officials on the day.
“It’s like they expected us to control Covid,” Rose said.
“But we agreed to let Michael weigh-in in Melbourne – that’s never been done before.
“I reckon they didn’t think we’d be able to pull it off, but we organised that private jet for the Zerafa team to fly in Wednesday, and fly them straight back to Melbourne that night. That would put them in a bubble that gives them the best chance to avoid quarantine if it came to that.
“Then they said ‘Let’s wait a couple of weeks until Covid passes’, but how do we know when that will be?”
Tszyu is unequivocal. “Whatever the reason is, there should be no excuses,” Tszyu said.
“You get your arse here and you fight, no matter what.”
During that frantic Wednesday afternoon, Rose also had a phone hook-up with Fox Sports heavyweights including executive director, Steve Crawley.
The All Access documentary promoting Tszyu vs Zerafa, that took weeks to pull together and aired Tuesday evening, was immediately pulled from the programming schedule.
Fight posters and billboards across the country needed to be pulled down.
A specially assigned mural painting in Melbourne required a quick makeover by the artist.
“It’s disrespectful to Fox Sports, to Matt Rose, to No Limit,” Tszyu said.
“This stuff takes a lot of time, a lot of planning, a lot of financial expense to make happen.
“To just pull out, you’re just disrespectful.”
There has been much speculation that Zerafa withdrew out of fear of being beaten, and particular focus has been his comment to Tszyu last week that “Micky Hatton” would show up in the ring – a reference to Tszyu’s father Kostya, who retired after an 11-round beating at the hands of Englishman Ricky Hatton in 2005.
“I saw a sense, he regretted what he said straight away, you could see it,’ Tszyu said.
“It’s a sensitive topic, first of all. You don’t mention family, you don’t disrespect someone who is the greatest here in Australia, one of the greatest in the world, and disrespect a loss like that.
“And especially when it’s my dad and it means so much to me.
“For him losing was nothing, but for us it wasn’t.
“But never in my mind did I think Zerafa was going to not fight though.”
Rose had to scramble to find a worthy opponent once Zerafa withdrew.
“I thought, who is the best out there right now for Tim to fight. The three names that immediately came to mind were Steve Spark, Ben Mahoney and Andrew Hunt,” Rose said.
“I called Hunt, his trainer Glenn Rushton texted back ‘How much’. I left that.
“Mahoney said he needed to think about it, Spark said ‘Yes’ straight away and told me to he would be on the first plane available to Newcastle.”
Still reeling from the shock news of his grudge match disappearing, Tszyu and Jennings had returned to their Newcastle hotel and were on a three-way call with Rose.
“They presented two options, Mahoney or Steve Spark,” Tszyu said.
“Ben Mahoney, I did training camp with him, we sparred together, and I knew exactly what to do to beat him.
“And I knew it wasn’t going to be much of a challenge, so I’m not going to take that option. I’ll take the option that I haven’t sparred, that I haven’t trained with, someone who is fresh and ready to go.
“I said to them, ‘You’ve got an hour to get the deal done’.”
Rose phoned Spark (12-1, 11KO) while he was pulling beers in the Toowoomba bowling club that employs him for $25 an hour, and offered him $100,000 and the chance to create one of the greatest upsets in Australian boxing. Deal done.
“We had agreement from Spark, I told Tim at 4pm,” Rose said. “Tim was in the gym by 4.30pm.”
Tszyu (18-0, 14KO) said: “I’m not underestimating him, I think he’s going to be a tough challenge. I’m going in there with a real confident mentality, believing I’m levels apart from anyone in the world.
“So everyone they put in front of me, I just have to get rid of.
“I just want to fight the top boys, that’s it, simple.
“The journey goes on.
“It was hard to process things at first, it was a hard night to get through, but I got through it.
“I’m confident now I’m in the right mindset to go on to the next. Zerafa is forgotten, right now I’ve got Spark on my mind and he’s probably a bigger challenge than Zerafa.”
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Originally published as Inside story: How the Tim Tszyu camp found out about Michael Zerafa’s decision – and the brutal reaction
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