Boxing nice Kostya Tszyu turns 55 right this moment, and the previous pound-for-pound king has so many nice fights and nights to look again on.
Consider Tszyu, and you probably immediately flip to 2 fights of his: his huge upset loss to Ricky Hatton on the very finish of Tszyu’s profession and Zab Judah, who Tszyu met when he was in his prime. Tszyu, who picked up massive wins over the likes of Juan Laporte, Sammy Fuentes, Livingston Bramble, Jake Rodriguez, Roger Mayweather, Calvin Grove, Rafael Ruelas, Diosbelys Hurtado, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Julio Cesar Chavez (a combat the growing older Chavez ought to by no means have taken), Sharmba Mitchell, Oktay Urkal, Ben Tackie, and Jesse James Leija – was on hearth when he bumped into Judah in November of 2001.
The beautiful, sensational, and even disturbing KO Tszyu scored over Zab stays a YouTube fave.
Why?
If you happen to ever want to see simply what can occur to a fighter’s equilibrium, to his capacity to suppose in any manner clearly after taking one completely positioned punch to a susceptible level of the top – be it to the purpose of the chin, or to the temple – the brief however very memorable combat that passed off on November 3, 2001, between Tszyu and Judah ticks the field in a single graphic manner.
The 2 rival 140-pounders met of their three-belt unification showdown, and the specialists had been just about cut up down the center over who would win. It was an awesome match-up between two peaking fighters. Slick southpaw Judah from New York was unbeaten at 27-0, and he held the IBF belt. Tszyu of Australia was 27-1, the loss coming towards Vince Phillips in 1997, and he held the WBC and WBA titles.
As an alternative of an awesome combat, what we bought was an awesome KO. An completely devastating knockout that left the loser in all types of bother.
Zab gained the opening spherical, his pace and accuracy one thing to behold, and already some followers puzzled if Tszyu was just too sluggish to have the ability to compete with “Tremendous Judah.” Then, within the dying seconds of spherical two, it occurred. Tszyu landed an ideal right-hand shot to the purpose of Judah’s uncovered chin, and the thunderous blow despatched Zab down closely on his again. Judah bought up rapidly, too rapidly, and he fell once more virtually immediately, this after attempting to speak to referee Jay Nady.
Nady waved the combat off instantly after the second knockdown, seeing up shut how Judah’s legs had so completely gone. Judah was inconsolable, crying about how he had been okay to hold on after which turning nasty, grabbing the third man by the throat together with his gloved fist, after which throwing a stool at Nady. It was ugly stuff. One punch, one completely executed punch, had ruined a advantageous fighter to the extent that Judah didn’t know what he was doing, or the place he was at.
In some ways, Judah’s profession by no means recovered. Tszyu’s grenade of a punch exploded, and Judah had suffered the sort of humiliating KO defeat all fighters concern. Judah was the sufferer of all method of merciless jokes that had been cracked at his expense, with followers referring to his “hen dance.”
All fighters put a lot on the road every time they bravely set foot within the ring. Kostya Tszyu’s brutal knockout proved a lot all these years in the past.
Joyful birthday, Champ!
