Tim Tszyu’s Message to Crawford: Danger, Don’t Play with Fire!

The fight for the vacant WBO and WBC super welterweight championship belts, which brings together Tim Tszyu vs Sebastian Fundora will be held at T-Mobile Arena, Sunday (31/3/2024). Ahead of the fight, the Australian boxer claimed that he would call Tyson Fury.

Tszyu explained how he first became close to Fury. The meeting occurred in May last year when the Gypsy King deliberately flew to Melbourne to watch his partner Joseph Parker fight.

Later in the evening, Fury not only chatted with the eldest Tszyu brother, but also offered special praise for Tszyu’s win against Tony Harrison just a few weeks earlier. “And I started stumbling,” Tszyu recalled with a laugh, quoted by FoX Sports.

I had Tyson Fury in front of me and said ‘I watched your fight with Harrison… I loved that fight’. I thought, ‘holy shit, this guy saw me fight? So now, the attention isn’t all that surprising. Because what you are talking about is an elite fighter. And I’m elite.”

In the fight against Fundora, he probably won’t see Fury present in the corner of the ring. But Tszyu stressed that he would still contact his number one supporter shortly before walking out to face Fundora.

“I will definitely call him on fight day. He’s my number one guy. It’s all his. I’ve talked to him every day for the last two months… (laughs) although mostly he calls me non-stop,” Tszyu said.

“Because if he calls and I don’t pick up, that’s 20 more missed calls. I don’t think he knows how to leave a message – he just calls and then, if no one answers, keeps pressing the button.”

For Tszyu, this is his second fight in the United States, and he has been the talk of the American boxing world this week. It started when coaches, commentators, even fellow boxers discussed a potential fight against Crawford or Spence.

While all his focus is on Fundora, Tszyu also welcomed talk of Crawford being his next opponent if he unifies the WBO and WBC titles.

Asked what message he wanted to send to WBO super welterweight mandatory challenger Crawford, Tszyu grinned: “It’s dangerous… don’t play with fire.”

(fly)