{"id":414201,"date":"2026-01-15T08:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414201\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T08:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:16:10","slug":"boxing-news-2026-michael-zerafa-vs-nikita-tszyu-weigh-in-comments-nelson-asofa-solomona-vs-jeremy-latimore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414201\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing news 2026 | Michael Zerafa vs Nikita Tszyu weigh in; comments; Nelson Asofa-Solomona vs Jeremy Latimore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Zerafa<\/a> returned to his antagonising best during the weigh-in between him and Nikita Tszyu<\/a> ahead of their highly anticipated bout<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before the weigh-in, Zerafa kept it nice saying “may the best man win” and hoping for both of them to come out healthy.<\/p>\n

But when they faced off, Zerafa got up in Tszyu’s grill before they had to be separated by No Limit promoter Matt Rose.<\/p>\n

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The two then stayed in close proximity before Tszyu tapped him on the shoulder to end the face-off.<\/p>\n

Tszyu had weighed in for the fight at 70.6kg while Zerafa was 71.16kg.<\/p>\n

Former professional fighter Paulie Malignaggi said excitedly on Main Event that “the real Michael Zerafa showed up”.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nikita Tszyu and Michael Zerafa. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“I like how he switched it on suddenly,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s been fun and games the whole time and now it’s time to welcome him (Tszyu) to another level. I think it threw Nikita Tszyu off a little bit, by the end of that he was tapping Michael on the shoulder.”<\/p>\n

Before the weigh in Tszyu had promised the fans would see “one of the best Australian domestic bouts”. He found the funny side to it all when interviewed after the theatrics.<\/p>\n

“He’s got a bony-arse forehead, that’s all I noticed \u2013 so I’m going to aim for the chin,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m so happy that he’s back. I’m so happy that I got to see that fire.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nikita Tszyu. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Tszyu admitted the emotion from Zerafa makes him a better fighter. <\/p>\n

“I think in the past when he’s been nice and respectful are the times that he’s been beaten,” said Tszyu.<\/p>\n

“So, I think the bad guy is his best attitude. But you can fight fire with fire sometimes, you just get a bigger fire.<\/p>\n

“This is a do-or-die moment for him. If he gets beaten by me, that’s hard to come back from. I’m so young in my career so he’s definitely got to show up, he’s laser-focused. I’ve seen how he’s been talking, he’s been treating this like a one-last ride or die.”<\/p>\n

Former NRL players Nelson Asofa-Solomona<\/a> and Jeremy Latimore will also fight on the undercard<\/a> with over 20 kilos difference between them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nelson Asofa-Solomona faces off with Jeremy Latimore. \u00a0No Limit Boxing<\/p>\n

Latimore weighed in at 112.7kg while Asofa-Solomona was 133.1kg.<\/p>\n

Asofa-Solomona said “it’s my time now” while Latimore was backing himself.<\/p>\n

“I’m picking a Latimore victory, I’ll finish him in the third or fourth round,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Zerafa returned to his antagonising best during the weigh-in between him and Nikita Tszyu ahead of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-414201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}