He’s been training at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas for the past six weeks, but Tim Tszyu remains a boxing man at heart and will attend Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez’s showdown with Edgar Berlanga this weekend instead of UFC 306.
As much as anything, it’s a scouting mission for the future for Tszyu.
The Aussie, who fights Bakhram Murtazaliev for the IBF super welterweight world title on October 20 in Orlando, has his eyes on a few future opponents this weekend.
Fresh off a two-round demolition of Michael Zerafa, Erislandy Lara defends his WBA middleweight title in the co-main event against Danny Garcia.
Meanwhile, former super-middleweight world titleist Caleb Plant is also in action at T-Mobile Arena, where Tszyu fell to his bloody world title showdown against Sebastian Fundora in March.
“There’s Canelo, obviously, there’s Erislandy Lara, there’s Danny Garcia,” he told this masthead from his Las Vegas base this week. “There’s a couple of fights on there that are interesting.
“It’ll be good to go to the arena that I fought in as well – it’ll be interesting.”
As for his prediction for the main event, Tszyu sees one way traffic.
Canelo boasts a 61-2-2 record and has only lost to two of the best fighters of the past 20 years in Floyd Mayweather and Dimitri Bivol.
Meanwhile, the 27-year-old, 22-0 Berlanga has never fought for a world title before, and hasn’t stepped into the ring with anyone even close to the quality of Canelo.
“I reckon Canelo stops him,” Tszyu said, bluntly. “Just with overall power.
“I don’t think Berlanga has the chin for it.”
Canelo has promised to deliver a knockout too, telling Berlanga to his face that the New Yorker is overmatched.
“Saturday night is going to be very difficult for him,” Canelo said this week. “I’ve prepared for a knockout.
“I love the feeling of a knockout and I’m gonna do my best to get it done.”
Although Tszyu is opting for the boxing over the UFC, the 29-year-old says he has levelled up by using the company’s state of the art Performance Institute since kicking off his fight camp in Vegas in late July.
The UFC PI is the multimillion dollar facility Dana White had purpose built so his fighters have easy access to the best training equipment, coaches, and nutrition and recovery specialists in Vegas.
It’s where Aussie UFC star Alex Volkanovski finishes off his training camps when he trains in Las Vegas.
It’s also where the Rabbitohs, Sea Eagles, Roosters and Panthers spent time training ahead of the NRL’s Las Vegas season launch in March.
