{"id":10194,"date":"2025-07-20T10:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T10:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/10194\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T10:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T10:14:07","slug":"tim-tszyu-faces-career-crossroads-after-defeat-to-sebastian-fundora-in-world-title-rematch-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/10194\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Tszyu faces career crossroads after defeat to Sebastian Fundora in world title rematch | Boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Tim Tszyu has suffered another devastating setback, losing once again to American Sebastian Fundora in the pair\u2019s much-hyped world title rematch in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Tszyu had been hunting redemption after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2024\/mar\/31\/boxing-tim-tszyu-sebastian-fundora-las-vegas-bout-super-welterweight-wbc-wbo-belts\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">losing a split-decision bloodbath to Fundora 16 months ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Instead Australia\u2019s former WBO super-welterweight world champ will return to Sydney with his international career at another crossroad following a brutal seventh-round corner stoppage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Saturday night\u2019s TKO loss at the MGM Grand\u2019s Garden Arena was the 30-year-old\u2019s third from his past four bouts, after going unbeaten for his first 24 professional fights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Tszyu also endured a crushing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2024\/oct\/20\/australias-tim-tszyu-suffers-shock-defeat-to-bakhram-murtazaliev-in-super-welterweight-bout\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">world-title loss last year to big-hitting Russian Bakhram Murtazaliev<\/a> before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2024\/apr\/02\/tim-tszyu-vs-sebastian-fundora-results-rematch-sampson-lewkowicz-tmobile-arena-las-vegas\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fundora sportingly offered him a rematch<\/a> after the Sydney slayer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2025\/apr\/06\/tim-tszyu-vs-joey-spencer-boxing-fight-report\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">knocked out fellow American Joey Spencer<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Team Tszyu say it is too early to speculate on his future in the sport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Tszyu (25-3, 18KOs) may consider a move up to the light-middleweight ranks, as he has previously forecast, or hope Keith Thurman lives up to his word after the US star called him out after slaying Brock Jarvis earlier this year in Sydney.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">More immediately, Tszyu must digest another crushing defeat that left the son of a gun in hospital for a precautionary check of his battered body following another ferocious fight with Fundora.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Last time around against his gangling 197cm opponent, Tszyu had to fight for 10 rounds half-blinded after walking into Fundora\u2019s elbow and suffering an horrific cut to an artery at the top of his head.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">In the return bout, Tszyu fought with more patience but couldn\u2019t stay with the near two-metre tall rival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Fundora made a spectacular start, dropping Tszyu in the opening round with a thunderous straight left to the head.<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian Fundora\u00a0knocks down Tim Tszyu in the first round of their WBC super welterweight title fight at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Photograph: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Tszyu\u2019s cut man Mark Gambin was again under immense pressure after Fundora landed a flurry of punches to open up a nasty wound above the Australian\u2019s right eye in the second round.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Struggling to cope with Fundora\u2019s massive height and reach advantage, Tszyu looked in peril before catching the American with a huge over-hand right in round four.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">But the Californian, the tallest world champion in all of boxing \u2013 continued to throw and land more punches than Tszyu.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-16\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1xjndtj\">The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n<p>Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/privacy\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/terms\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-16\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Tszyu needed to conjure something special. Showing supreme courage to stay in the contest, Tszyu found some joy with his body shots before the fight exploded in a ferocious round seven.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Despite hurting Fundora and maybe even breaking the champion\u2019s nose, Tszyu agreed he could not return for round eight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Fundora is about to start a six-year engineering degree at Harvard University, but Tszyu graciously said his vanquisher was already fully qualified in the sweet science.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">\u201cI tried to give it everything, but I just couldn\u2019t do it and victory belongs to Sebastian Fundora, the best 154-pounder on the planet right now,\u201d Tszyu said. \u201cHe was just a better man. He\u2019s a better man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Fundora said the fight transpired exactly how he envisioned it would.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">\u201cI dropped him in round one and I remembered that my dad said all week that he thinks we could get him out of there and that\u2019s what we did,\u201d the 26-year-old said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">\u201cI was not surprised I dropped him. I was coming off a loss last time, so my mentality wasn\u2019t there. Coming into this fight, I was the champion and mentally I was better.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">\u201cI\u2019m the bigger guy. Everyone says I\u2019m a bully in the ring, so I thought I should start really bullying these guys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">\u201cI just kept working on aggression my whole career and we\u2019ve just been adding. I\u2019m here at 154 to stay and ready to get more belts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Tszyu has suffered another devastating setback, losing once again to American Sebastian Fundora in the pair\u2019s much-hyped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-10194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}