Tim Tszyu opens up on the dark moment from his dad Kostya’s past that left his family devastated

Tim Tszyu has revealed the dark aftermath of his father’s most devastating defeat and how, amid the bitter fallout, he thought his own professional boxing career might be over before it even began.

Australian boxing’s most decorated father-son duo are set for an emotional reunion when Kostya brings Tszyu to the ring to face undefeated Russian Bakhram Murtazaliev in an IBF blockbuster in Florida on Sunday.

Tszyu aims to emulate his Hall of Famer father as a multiple world champion at the Caribe Royale resort in Orlando, where Kostya will watch live for the first time since his son’s debut in Sydney nine years ago.

The son of an armed date with fate was just a dream after Kostya left his family for a new one in his native Russia, some three years after having his career ended by Ricky Hatton in 2005.

Tszyu was just ten years old and into football when Hatton abused and broke his father in Manchester, causing the former unified world champion to relinquish his IBF super lightweight belt and send a shattered Kostya into retirement.

“It was a difficult part of Dad’s life,” Tszyu said.

“So I remember my dad was kind of going through it and it was hard on the family. It was very difficult.

‘Yes, I remember when Dad lost. I don’t remember the fight very well, but I remember it being a very boring feeling.”

Kostya Tszyu lost his IBF light-welterweight title to Ricky Hatton in 2005 (pictured) after failing to come out before the 12th round

Tszyu has never seen a repeat of the Hatton bashing and admits the empty feeling contributed to him also leaving the sport as a young teenager and thinking he might never return.

“I kind of started boxing around that time,” he said. ‘I honestly didn’t want anything to do with it.

‘I wanted to explore other ways, especially when my father left for Russia and my mother said, ‘oh, you have to do this, you have to go to college, you have to do that.’

“So I listened to too many people and I wasn’t my own man, I guess, and I turned to boxing because all through high school it was boxing, boxing, boxing, you know, and you miss a lot of things.”

When Kostya left Australia, Tszyu’s mother Natasha insisted that all three of her children needed an education to secure their future.

While his sister Anastasia earned nursing degrees and younger brother Nikita – who is now also a professional boxer and undefeated in ten fights – spent seven years earning an architecture degree, Tszyu soon realized that studying was not his thing.

‘I tried. “I wasn’t really a schoolboy,” he chuckled.

‘Tried to go to university, went to university, did a business degree at UTS, but it didn’t work out. “No, it just wouldn’t work.”

Four years earlier, in 2001, Kostya Tszyu stunned Zab Judah in Las Vegas – and at the time held the WBC, WBA and IBF belts in his weight class

After leaving his business studies at university, Tim Tszyu took up personal training at a boxing gym in Sydney – and his love for the sport soon returned (the father and son are pictured, in 2019)

Instead, Tszyu started personal training.

“Back in a boxing gym,” he said. “So I started with that and then it just grew and that lit the fire again while I was in the gym.

“Then I started sparring, well, cracking everyone without getting hit, and I thought, ‘You know what? I’m pretty good at this’.

“I think that time (without boxing) made me realize that this is what I wanted to do.”

More than a decade after his sabbatical, things have come full circle for the 29-year-old and he can’t wait to see his father ringside, unlike the night of his debut when ‘chaos’ reigned with Kostya omnipresent and shouting instructions to the point of distraction. .

“It’s not like I need Dad there,” Tszyu said. ‘I want him there.

“I think he’s more nervous when he’s acting, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m pretty excited.

“It’s a big moment for me and what’s changed is the fact that I’ve grown and know how to eliminate all distractions, and it’s not up to who’s around me.

“It’s up to me.”