SYDNEY, Australia – Anthony Velazquez’s trainer has warned Tim Tszyu that he is relying on an “amateur coach” to revive his career and predicted that his shortcomings will lead to Tszyu “quitting again”.
Tszyu on Wednesday fights for the first time under his new trainer Pedro Diaz. He confronts Velazquez at the TikTok Entertainment Centre in his home city of Sydney in his attempts to rebuild his career, and will fight at a catchweight of 157lbs.
After three defeats in four fights – two to Sebastian Fundora, either side of a further defeat by Bakhram Murtazaliev and a victory over Joey Spencer – Tszyu separated from his uncle and trainer Igor Goloubev and his manager Glenn Jennings, and recruited Cuba’s Diaz to lead his new-look team.
The experienced Mike Altamura and Darcy Ellis have replaced Jennings, and Tsyzu, 31, has also recruited an advisor in the retired Jeff Fenech. Between them they have approved of the 29-year-old Velazquez as his opponent, but Hector Bermudez, the trainer of Velazquez, has warned them that they have made a “huge mistake”.
“Switching trainers right now is a detriment to his career,” the American said upon their arrival in Sydney. “There’s no way you can develop chemistry that quickly with someone.
“Someone’s style is built through their career, right? Switching things up now thinking you’re gonna get any type of benefits from it is a huge mistake. The ring’s gonna expose every instinct that you have, and instinct is built throughout time, whatever trainer he had before.
“Pedro Diaz is probably a really, really good amateur coach. He always get hired. He has a lot of knowledge about boxing; always get hired, and then get fired. That’s his career, if you see his career. Knowledgeable – yeah, he have the knowledge. But look what happened to Mick Conlan [who lost after working with him]. Everybody he puts his hands on late in their career…
“He’s an amateur coach. Tim, from the very beginning, had a pro style. So you go to a Cuban coach to learn the amateur system? I don’t know who he had before, but they was doing a great job.
“I just know that they picked the wrong fighter. I know that when you’re trying to rebuild a fighter you don’t pick a puncher – this kid’s got dynamite in both hands.
“The right moment, the right voice, can cost you the fight – I don’t know how good he even speaks English.
“Tim is not the same fighter that he was, man. He quit.”
When Bermudez described Tszyu as “quitting” he was referring to how in July’s rematch with Fundora he was retired on his stool.
He proceeded to reveal that he had placed a bet on Tszyu winning that night, such was his confidence in him based on the first fight in which the Australian was undermined by a significant cut to his scalp.
Unlike throughout the first fight with Fundora and against Murtazaliev in 2024, by the end of the rematch with Fundora – for the first time in his career – Tszyu looked defeated, and it is that that Bermudez insists is on course to happen again.
“I’d actually bet on him to win,” he said, “because of how well he was dominating [in the first fight] before he got cut.
“And that was a bad mistake, they should’ve stopped the fight and called it a draw. So I had that in mind.
“But when he fought him again, you know, I don’t know what happened but it wasn’t the same Tim.
“He’s not the same fighter. And I don’t know if you guys are fans of his but he’s not the same fighter as when he started out.
“If he needed fundamentally sound coaching, he could go to an amateur coach,” Bermudez continued. “But you don’t do it now.
“You just don’t. Because it could hurt him. Think about him getting tossed something new and thinking about that when bombs are being thrown at him, it’s not going to mesh.
“I think Tszyu has a good [new] management team, but I don’t know why they went all the way to Florida to pick Pedro Diaz.
“There are variables there that shouldn’t be there.
“Switching coaches can be a good tactic to avoid accountability. So I don’t know what’s going on there, with them hyping him up.
“I could think of 10 coaches that would suit Tim’s style better than learning three punch combinations every time.
“Think about his style. Does he ever go backwards? No, he comes forward.
“And what ethnicity does that put you in mind of? Mexicans. So Robert Garcia would’ve been right. Any Mexican coach on the west coast of America, not Florida.
“That chemistry is built with time. You don’t just build it in eight weeks.
“Any time I get someone, you have to first take a step backwards to go forward. Takes about a year – a couple of fights – to mesh that chemistry.
“Whatever success Tim has [next week] is not going to be because of his trainer. His trainer could hurt him more than help him.
“[Velazquez is] in shape, has come to fight and can punch with both hands.
“And we know once Tim feels something, it’s going to remind him of quitting; of being knocked out.”
