With Thurman injured, Tszyu will instead fight Fundora on March 30
Defends WBO 154 title with vacant WBC belt also at stake
A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.
Tim Tszyu has gone from a nontitle bout to a junior middleweight unification fight due to an injury to opponent Keith Thurman.
Tszyu will face replacement opponent Sebastian Fundora in a WBO title defense and also for the vacant WBC 154-pound belt in the new main event of the of the first Premier Boxing Champions card of its new deal with Prime Video on March 30 (Prime Video PPV and PPV.com, 8 p.m., $74.99) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, PBC announced on Monday.
It capped a day of scrambling for PBC and TGB Promotions after Thurman suffered a biceps injury during a sparring session on Sunday, forcing them to work on contingency plans, sources told Fight Freaks Unite.
Please upgrade to a paid subscription for full access to all posts and comments — and also help support independent journalism
Organizers hoped Thurman would be able to stay in the fight but after an MRI exam on Monday he was ruled out. But they had Fundora in place by Sunday night as a replacement if needed, sources said.
Fundora was already scheduled to box Serhii Bohachuk for the vacant WBC title on the pay-per-view undercard and now will instead move up to the main event position to face Tszyu while Bohachuk will remain on the card but box in a non-PPV bout.
Bohachuk (23-1, 23 KOs), 28, a Ukraine native fighting out of Los Angeles, will face late replacement Brian Mendoza (22-3, 16 KOs), 30, of Las Vegas, for the vacant interim WBC junior middleweight title in the first of two free bouts on Prime Video (6 p.m. ET) before the start of the pay-per-view. With a win, Bohachuk probably will be rewarded with a fight against Tszyu if he beats Fundora. If Fundora wins, Tszyu has a rematch clause, a source told Fight Freaks Unite.
The new main event has greater meaning than Tszyu-Thurman would have had. That bout was contracted as a 155-pound nontitle bout because the WBO would not sanction the fight as a Tszyu defense because Thurman (30-1, 22 KOs), 35, of Clearwater, Florida, is not ranked by the organization, would be moving up from welterweight (where he was once a unified titleholder), and would be coming off a 25-month layoff for what would have been just his third fight since March 2017.
The change will mean major adjustments for the 5-foot-8 Tszyu, who was preparing to fight the 5-9 right-handed Thurman. Now he is tasked with taming the 6-6 “Towering Inferno” Fundora, who is a southpaw.
“I’m used to the word ‘pull out,’” Tszyu posted to social media after the change was made. “Thurman, (Jermell) Charlo, (Michael) Zerafa, Erickson Lubin. And as always the show goes on … see you all March 30.”
Tszyu (24-0, 17 KOs), 29, of Australia, who is the son of Hall of Famer Kostya Tszyu, last fought in October in a fight billed as his Australian farewell as he plans to fight regularly in the United States for the foreseeable future. In that fight last fall, Tszyu outpointed Mendoza in his first defense of the full WBO belt after being elevated from interim titlist.
In Mendoza’s previous fight, last April in Carson, California, he was being routed in a one-sided domination by then-WBC interim titlist Fundora until scoring a booming seventh-round knockout for the upset victory. Fundora (20-1-1, 13 KOs), 26, of Coachella, California, has not fought since.
The co-feature, WBA junior welterweight titlist Rolando “Rolly” Romero (15-1, 13 KOs), 28, of Las Vegas, making his first defense against Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz (25-2-1, 17 KOs), 25, of Mexico, remains intact as does Erislandy Lara (29-3-3, 17 KOs), 40, a Cuban southpaw fighting out of Houston, making his second WBA middleweight title defense in a long overdue mandatory fight against Michael Zerafa (31-4, 19 KOs), 31, of Australia.
In the new pay-per-view opener, Julio Cesar Martinez will defend the WBC flyweight title against Angelino Cordova in a fight shifted from the free portion of the card just before the PPV begins.
Martinez (20-2, 15 KOs), 29, of Mexico, who will be making his seventh defense, and Cordova (18-0-1, 12 KOs), 28, of Venezuela, were scheduled to fight Dec. 16 on the Showtime finale in Minneapolis, but the bout was postponed because Martinez had issues obtaining his visa in time.
Also on the free portion of the card on Prime Video, top middleweight prospect Elijah Garcia (16-0, 13 KOs), 20, of Glendale, Arizona, who was No. 6 on the Fight Freaks Unite top prospect list at the end of 2023, will fight Kyrone Davis (18-3-1, 6 KOs), 29, of Wilmington, Delaware, in a 10-round bout as originally scheduled.
The event marks PBC’s first event with Prime Video, which it made a deal with in December to replace longtime broadcast partner Showtime Sports, whose parent company, Paramount Global, shuttered Showtime Sports after 37 years at the end of 2023.
A note to subscribers
I sincerely appreciate your readership. If you’re reading, it means you love boxing just like I do. If you’ve been reading you also know the quality and quantity of what I produce. It’s one-stop shopping. Read the newsletters and there is no need to search multiple websites or click a multitude of links to get the latest news, opinion and detailed fight schedule. Everything you need is in one spot and delivered directly to your inbox (or via phone alert if you download for free the superb Substack app). You don’t have to hunt for the news; it comes to you.
I believe that is worth something, so while I will continue providing stories, notes and the schedule for free, I encourage you to upgrade to a paid subscription for the most content. A paid subscription is your way of keeping this reader-supported newsletter going and supporting independent journalism. I am beholden to no network, promoter, manager, sanctioning body or fighter. If you have read my work at all during the past 24 years I’ve covered professional boxing you know that I keep it real and that will not change.
To upgrade your subscription please go here:
Thank you so much for your support of Fight Freaks Unite!
Tszyu photo: No Limit Boxing
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danrafael1/
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanRafael1
Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanRafaelBoxing
This is actually a harder fight for Tszyu due to Fundora’s height and southpaw stance. What I like about Tszyu is he’s coming into enemy territory and at the last minute agrees to a much more difficult opponent …..If He wins impressively it will show he’s “old school”. Much admiration to Tszyu. Keep punching.
Of course Thurman is injured