{"id":464758,"date":"2025-10-01T03:43:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/464758\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T03:43:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:43:14","slug":"sebastian-fundora-sensed-something-was-bothering-tim-tszyu-before-rematch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/464758\/","title":{"rendered":"Sebastian Fundora Sensed \u2018Something Was Bothering\u2019 Tim Tszyu Before Rematch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sebastian Fundora<\/a> sensed something was wrong with Tim Tszyu<\/a> before their rematch two months ago.<\/p>\n

Fundora doesn\u2019t know exactly what bothered the former WBO junior middleweight champion during fight week in Las Vegas. Whatever it was, Fundora feels it adversely affected Tszyu when they fought for the 6-foot-6 southpaw\u2019s WBC super welterweight title July 19 at MGM Grand Garden Arena.<\/p>\n

Fundora, who will face Keith Thurman on October 25<\/a>, beat Tszyu by technical knockout in their second meeting because he declined to answer the bell to start the eighth round. Tszyu was knocked down during the first round and trailed by the same score, 69-63, on all three cards when their bout abruptly ended.The dejected Australian admitted afterward that Fundora\u2019s relentlessness wore him down<\/a> and made Tszyu feel like whatever he did wouldn\u2019t be enough.
From Fundora\u2019s perspective, he had an advantage over Tszyu before the opening bell on the Manny Pacquiao-Mario Barrios undercard.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve gotta ignore all the extras and remain focused,\u201d Fundora told The Ring. \u201cRemain focused on what you want and what you\u2019re doing. And our fight weeks, both fight weeks, there was just something blocking [his mind]. And you could see it during the faceoff or whenever we interacted with each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see something was bothering him. And again, this is the World Series. You cannot do things like that. Those are mistakes that you will take into the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Bakhram Murtazaliev<\/a> tends to get credit for ruining Tszyu on October 19, Fundora feels he was the opponent who changed him in their first fight.<\/p>\n

Fundora won that bloodbath by split decision in March 2024. Tszyu (25-3, 18 KOs), whose head inadvertently hit Fundora\u2019s elbow late in the second round, fought through a ghastly gash in the middle of his hairline for 10 rounds.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Murtazaliev (23-0, 17 KOs) dropped Tszyu four times, three times in the second round and once in the third. Tszyu entered the ring as a 7-1 favorite, but Murtazaliev overwhelmed him to successfully defend his IBF junior middleweight belt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re gonna have a different mindset on fighting forever now, after that first fight,\u201d Fundora said. \u201cI think he definitely took a lotta damage in the first fight. I don\u2019t think he took too much damage versus [Murtazaliev]. It\u2019s just, again, after that first fight they\u2019re gonna be worried about their fighter. And he\u2019s gonna be worried himself. We saw how he came out that first round versus [Murtazaliev]. He wasn\u2019t focused at all. You could see him touching for a cut. And a lotta people still don\u2019t wanna give me credit at all for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fundora (23-1-1, 15 KOs), of Coachella, California, and Thurman (31-1, 23 KOs, 1 NC), of Clearwater, Florida, will headline a Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view show. DraftKings lists Fundora as more than a 4-1 favorite to beat Thurman, a former WBA\/WBC welterweight champ.<\/a><\/p>\n

Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sebastian Fundora sensed something was wrong with Tim Tszyu before their rematch two months ago. Fundora doesn\u2019t know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-464758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115296849439746768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}