{"id":893904,"date":"2026-09-16T09:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T09:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/893904\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T09:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T09:08:20","slug":"boxing-news-2026-nikita-tszyu-backflips-after-ben-mahoney-comments-split-draw-decision-hints-at-us-fight-tim-undercard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/893904\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing news 2026: Nikita Tszyu backflips after Ben Mahoney comments, split draw decision, hints at US fight, Tim undercard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nikita Tszyu<\/a> has backflipped on his comments after a controversial split draw against Ben Mahoney<\/a> and now believes he won the fight.<\/p>\n

The two Australian brawlers went to war for 12 rounds last month without a victor, after the three judges couldn\u2019t split on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ben Mahoney and Nikita Tszyu embrace.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

Tszyu got the nod 117-113 from one judge, Mahoney was favoured 115-113 by another, while the third judge scored it as a 114-114 draw.<\/p>\n

After the result was read out, Tszyu surprisingly admitted in the ring that he felt like he lost \u2013 something journalist Peter Badel labelled as \u201ccareer suicide\u201d \u2013 but speaking to media on Wednesday morning, he changed his tune.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I won the majority of the middle rounds. I gave him the first two rounds and the last two rounds,\u201d the 28-year-old Tszyu said. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything else in between, I thought [I had] the forward pressure, control of the ring and landing the heavier punches \u2026 that\u2019s personally how I favour the boxing. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely changed \u2013 in the heat of the moment you kind of forget, it\u2019s hard to be a judge when you\u2019re in the actual ring. I\u2019m not a very good judge internally. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I regret it because it\u2019s what I felt at the time. I\u2019m definitely still disappointed with the way I fought. I thought I could have done a lot better. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis fight was a great learning curve for me and it puts things into perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the only real blemish for Tszyu (12-0-1) across his 14 professional fights, with his January clash with Michael Zerafa<\/a> ending in a no-contest.<\/p>\n

The draw with Mahoney was the first time Tszyu was forced to be the villain in a fight, with the Gold Coast crowd completely behind their local fighter \u2013 something the second-generation star said he \u201cenjoyed\u201d before an overseas trip.<\/p>\n

Tszyu hinted he could end up fighting on American soil later this year, possibly on an undercard for his brother Tim<\/a>\u2019s world title clash with Erislandy Lara.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something lined up at the end of the year. Whether it\u2019s international or another domestic fight, I\u2019m not too sure,\u201d Nikita said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what we\u2019re looking towards [fighting in the US]. The different experience, having to face different kinds of adversity and even not having to be the headline act \u2013 that\u2019s good as well, not putting so much pressure on me. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of pressure put on me since the very start, so it could be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikita Tszyu has backflipped on his comments after a controversial split draw against Ben Mahoney and now believes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-893904","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\/893904","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=893904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}