BRISBANE, Australia – Nikita Tszyu accused Michael Zerafa of “quitting” after their grudge match descended into the controversy of the no contest caused by the cut by Zerafa’s left eye.
An accidental clash of heads in the second round at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre led to an inspection from the ringside doctor. The cut was insignificant and routinely handled by Zerafa’s corner, but he intimated that he couldn’t continue and three seconds into the third round it was therefore called off.
Retired world champions Paulie Malignaggi and Shawn Porter were commentating from ringside and concluded that Zerafa, 33, had “quit” the pay-per-view contest.
The Australian’s protestations were weak and as unconvincing as the cut he had barely suffered. The damage to his reputation will no doubt be significantly greater, and while the 27-year-old Tszyu refused to rule out a future contest between them being scheduled, promoters No Limit and broadcasters Main Event will almost certainly recognise that Zerafa’s involvement in another big fight is not something in which others will be tempted to invest.
“I definitely do,” Tszyu responded when asked whether he also believed that Zerafa had quit. “I think that he underestimated me and once the cut happened I think there was a bit of PTSD coming through. His emotions got the better of him; he started to panic. Some of the stuff that Paulie Malignaggi was criticising him over – that he doesn’t have the heart and he’s checked out… Once that little bit of pain comes in, he’s looking for the exit straight away.
“Spewing’s the word. I didn’t think [the cut] was that bad. It’s a shame that he took the first exit that he could find.
“I’m being told that the referee said ‘If you can’t see then we’re gonna have to stop this’ and he agreed. What can you do?
“It’s all up to these guys [whether a future fight is scheduled].
“I’m actually quite numb at the moment. I don’t know what I’m thinking.
“Every fight has had some sort of impact on [Zerafa]. The big one was [in 2024, Erislandy] Lara, ‘cause he was just flatlined in two rounds; looked like shit in that situation, and that’s a hard one to live up to.
“Maybe Tszyu-Zerafa is always gonna be a question mark.
“I was honestly shitting myself that he wasn’t going to rock up to the fight, ‘cause he came late to the arena. I was thinking ‘Fuck – don’t do this, man’.
“I was getting in a groove. I was still figuring him out. He was also still kind of figuring me out. We were still in the early stages of the fight. It was a head clash. We didn’t get to fully get into it yet.”
Tszyu was then asked whether his being a southpaw and Zerafa an orthodox fighter meant that both of them ought to have been prepared for clashes of heads.
“Yeah,” he responded. “Our two stances get head clashes all the time. It’s part of the business. It’s why I shave my head – so it’s easier to get to the cut if there is one.”
The fight was Tszyu’s first since his older brother Tim dismissed Glenn Jennings as his manager and their uncle Igor Goloubev as his trainer. Tim Tszyu’s old team, ironically, had previously been questioned because of their naivety in allowing him to continue fighting in 2024 against Sebastian Fundora after a significant cut opened in his scalp following an accidental clash of heads in the second round.
Tszyu stubbornly fought on that night in Las Vegas and to the detriment of his prospects; he narrowly lost for the first time in his career and has since lost twice more. Jennings and Goloubev were replaced because he had increasingly appeared a fighter in decline. They remain integral to Nikita Tszyu’s team but the memory of what unfolded in Vegas remains fresh in their minds.
“It’s very hard to quantify – the cut that Tim had was an axe wound, and when the doctor asked him at the end of every round ‘Can you see?’ the response was an automatic ‘Yes’, even under those conditions,” explained Jennings, Nikita Tszyu’s manager. “He couldn’t see for shit but he was gonna say ‘Yes’ regardless, and to see that tonight is just very hollow. It’s a very hollow feeling.
“The opportunity for Nikita to put an end to the Tszyu-Zerafa legacy slipped through our fingers again and you do have to question do we have the resolve to go through all this again knowing that it could happen again?
“It’s gut-wrenching for an event of this magnitude. In Australian boxing we get very few at this level. Walking out of that arena tonight not wanting to acknowledge anything – it was so flat. We all feel that way.
“We’ve already been asked would we accept a rematch? It’s not just for us. We’ll discuss the implications for [No Limit]; the implications for us. Does Nikita Tszyu want to go through that again on a risk that could happen again?”
No Limit promote both Tszyu and Zerafa and in the region of 10,000 tickets had been sold for a pay-per-view contest widely promoted. Their chief executive George Rose was booed after being interviewed in the ring, post-fight, and at the post-fight press conference he refused to be drawn on whether they would attempt to make it happen again.
“That’s a hard one for me to answer right now,” he explained. “It’s still very raw. The build-up to this has been fantastic. A hell of a lot of work went into this. Whenever you put in that work you want to make sure you see it to fruition. It’d be too early to answer that.
“I feel sorry for Nikita and for the team and all of the work that went into that. I’m sorry for them. It looks like he only had to do six minutes of work tonight but there’s six months that have gone into that. That’s hard work. That’s a lot of time; a lot of sacrifice. A lot of work’s gone into that for him to not get the opportunity to be the best Nikita Tszyu tonight because a win to him tonight would have meant a lot of things and a lot of opportunities.
“I said it in the ring after the fight but I feel for all the fans who turned up for this fight. Who were invested in this grudge match, in this bout, and want to see how it’d play out. The people who turned out here in the Brisbane Entertainment Centre are the people who watched on Main Event and Kayo and packed out pubs all across the country, I feel for them as well. Everybody wanted to see an outcome and we didn’t get to see that tonight.”
That Zerafa appeared to tell the referee that he couldn’t see contributed to the boos directed at Rose and those that could be heard when, from the ring, Zerafa oddly insisted that he had wanted to continue.
His departure from the arena before hosting a post-fight press conference contributed to the negative perceptions drawn from his performance. He did, however, speak to broadcasters Main Event post-fight, though he not only once again insisted that he had wanted to fight on – he contradicted the account that he had given from the ring.
“The doctor asked me questions, I answered the questions,” he said. “I said it was blurry. He covered my eye, said ‘Can you see?’ I said ‘I can’t see’. There was blood on my eye. It’s a natural cut.
“‘Do you want to continue? Do you want to keep going? Do you want to fight?’ Nothing. I’m just as confused and angry as everybody else. It was a tough fight, me and Nikita. I’m over this shit, honestly.
“I’m fucking over it. I don’t know if they’re gonna see me back in the ring anymore. I’m fucking done. I never get the credit I deserve. This is fucking bullshit.”
While he was in the ring, Zerafa was twice asked whether he had said he couldn’t continue and both times he insisted that he hadn’t.
What can be said with significantly greater certainty was that the clash of heads had inflicted minimal harm, and that after a largely successful career his reputation may be beyond repair.
