Tim Tszyu is under serious pressure to put on a dominant performance against Denis Nurja to ensure a showdown with Errol Spence remains lucrative enough to sell. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s the view of former two-weight world champion Pauli Malignaggi, who also wonders whether Nurja will get a fair showing with the judges this weekend. <\/p>\n
Malignaggi is in Sydney to work on the broadcast for the Easter Sunday fight, which he calls a potential \u201cbanana skin\u201d bout as Tszyu eyes up a multimillion dollar blockbuster with Spence later in the year. <\/p>\n
With so much riding on the outcome, the American has raised the question of whether unbeaten Albanian Nurja will receive fair officiating.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve gotta think about, if Nurja does get the job done, does he get the decision here?\u201d Malignaggi told Code Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan he get a decision here?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have something big on the horizon, typically, that\u2019s something that plays as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malignaggi has already seen first hand how wild Aussie boxing can be this year. <\/p>\n
The former super-lightweight and welterweight world champion was ringside for the crazy aftermath of Nikita Tszyu\u2019s controversial no contest with Michael Zerafa, when cans and cups of beers were thrown towards the ring in Brisbane in January. <\/p>\n
After landing in Sydney on Tuesday, Malignaggi spoke about how the Tszyu-Nurja is viewed in the US. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrom an American perspective, they want to see Tim perform well, so that the Spence fight is more attractive and more sellable,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need Tim to look sharp and to give the American audience something to gravitate towards.\u201d<\/p>\n
That becomes even more vital considering Spence hasn\u2019t fought in three years, since a one-sided defeat to Terence Crawford in 2023. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know what this version of Spence is,\u201d Malignaggi said. \u201cThis guy never fights.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s never active. He\u2019s been through the ringer inside and outside the ring too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had retinas issues, bad car accidents and a bad beating against Crawford. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know what Spence we\u2019re getting because the lay-off is so long. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe name still brings curiosity though, and I think Tim is approaching it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malignaggi, who had two world title wins over Sydney\u2019s Lovemore Ndou, called this weekend\u2019s fight a big risk for Tszyu.<\/p>\n
\u201cNurja is undefeated and he feels he\u2019s on the verge of achieving what his dreams have always been,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019ll finally have a big name on his resume, and if he beats this guy, he\u2019s in a position to put himself in the mix.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s won every fight he\u2019s had, but he\u2019s still hungry. And those guys are tough to beat, because they\u2019re willing to go through a little more to maintain that unbeaten record. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll get the best version of Nujra, and this is a banana skin type fight for Tim Tszyu.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn saying that, he\u2019s never been under this kind of pressure, and it\u2019s the kind of fight that Tim understands. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been here, he knows the magnitude and the energy and Nurja hasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Tszyu is under serious pressure to put on a dominant performance against Denis Nurja to ensure a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-579690","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\/579690","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=579690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}