Tim Tszyu-Anthony Velazquez Fight Week Diary: Day Four

Tuesday, December 16

SYDNEY, Australia – A moment’s silence was held outside of the TikTok Entertainment Centre at the start of the public weigh-in for Tim Tszyu-Anthony Velazquez, out of respect for the 16 victims killed during the terrorist shooting at Bondi Beach, and by the time of the weigh-in’s conclusion it was difficult to avoid how well that silence had been observed.

It is increasingly common at the highest level of boxing for weigh-ins to be ceremonial, but everyone who gathered to watch Tszyu, Velazquez and the undercard fighters stand on the scales – Liam Paro, fighting Ireland’s Paddy Donovan on the undercard of Nikita Tszyu-Michael Zerafa on January 16, in his capacity for broadcasters Main Event was among them – was able to judge their true condition with their own eyes. 

If promoters gain from ceremonial weigh-ins via the footage and photography that shows fighters in their rehydrated conditions looking fit and healthy to fight, a cynic might argue that they lose something when the less hungry among them behave in a way that they wouldn’t when on edge and desperate to refuel. The weigh-ins at the recent contest between Jai Opetaia and Huseyin Cinkara were ceremonial, but they fought in the Gold Coast, and the Australian National Boxing Federation Queensland is likelier to approve of requests for them to take place than the Combat Sports Authority of New South Wales, the commission that oversees fights in Sydney.

Jason Fawcett, who confronts Marco Romeo in an all-Australian welterweight contest, slapped his opponent and later had to be spoken to by promoters No Limit to prevent potential intervention from the Combat Sports Authority of New South Wales. The tension between Ahmad Reda and Wayne Telepe, who fight for the Australian junior-welterweight title, led to an arguably worse outcome when Telepe made a firing-gun gesture with his hand – not that there was ever any suggestion that he was aware of how vulgar doing so would have seemed off the back of what happened at Bondi Beach.

The tension was arguably eased when Koen Mazoudier was forced to strip naked to make weight for his Australian junior-middleweight title fight with Dominic Molinaro – not least because some of the crowd that had gathered were sat on stairs far higher than the stage the scales were on, and given No Limit’s George Rose so unconvincingly preserved his modesty.

After Tszyu and Velazquez weighed in, Tszyu – fighting in his home city for the first time in almost three years – refused to take his eyes off of the opponent who was at least as interested in posing for the cameras Tszyu almost didn’t seem aware existed. After they shook hands Tszyu pointed to his neck and spoke to Velazquez to tell him that he had seen a muscle twitching in his neck in a sign of his nerves but Velazquez, beyond looking slightly drawn facially, otherwise looked mostly at ease.

When Tszyu was then taken towards the television cameras to be interviewed one of his hands remained behind his back and was twitching in a subtle demonstration of the tension he was also feeling. His new trainer Pedro Diaz had finally arrived in town and, when asked, then told BoxingScene that he was unaware of the criticisms of him from Hector Bermudez, the trainer of Velazquez, but spoke with a both defensive and egotistical tone – and potentially even in a pre-prepared way – that suggested that what he said wasn’t true. 

“Yesterday when we had a face-off he had this pulsating thing on his neck – it’s still pulsating,” Tszyu told BoxingScene when asked about the gesture to Velazquez. “He needs to calm that nerve down. It doesn’t happen when you’re not nervous.”

“A conversation had to be had after the weigh-in, that’s for sure,” Rose later said to BoxingScene when asked about what unfolded between Fawcett and Romeo. “While we love building hype and building attention for a fight we don’t want to do it that way. A stern conversation was had after, from all involved. Just a reminder: ‘That’s not on. Sort it out in the ring tomorrow night.’ 

“[Ceremonial weigh-ins] make it hard to interview fighters because they’re well and truly drained. We can’t really go against prime-time news and things tonight; we have to be mindful of when we do it and how we do it. But you also get them at their ‘hangriest’ moments, which can be good too.”