Not only did I believe, in the moment, that Michael Zerafa quit against Nikita Tszyu – I listened to his post-fight interview and I believed it even more. Unfortunately for him what he said just didn’t add up.
If the referee and doctor were tempted to stop the fight he had the power to argue to the extent that he would have been able to continue. Diego Corrales once wasn’t allowed to continue fighting against Joel Casamayor because he had a hole in his mouth, despite Corrales going crazy. Zerafa, by comparison, didn’t risk protesting because he knew that if he did the fight would have carried on.
Fighters know the risk of head clashes every time they fight. I was also in Brisbane for the full fight week and I wasn’t convinced by what I observed of Zerafa. I know the feeling of being a little used up as a fighter – you’re not as hungry or determined as you used to be, not because you don’t want to be but because you’ve had too many tough fights. When a fighter reaches that point where they’re no longer looking to take a fight to dark places, they seek to win without doing so. They fight not to lose instead of fighting to win.
A fighter fighting to win has so much more intensity – not unlike Tszyu does. A fighter’s body language can also show so much about whether or not they are willing to go to that dark place, and Zerafa – who’s been at his best when he has a chip on his shoulder – didn’t show anything like that edge.
Teddy Atlas’ book From the Streets to the Ring provides a real insight into a fighter’s mind. One of the chapters, The Truth and a Lie, is something I’ve always kept in mind. That book came out, by the way, just before I fought Miguel Cotto. The Truth and a Lie is about the lie and the truth that a fighter tells themselves. The lie is that when a fight becomes very uncomfortable and they don’t want to be there a fighter is helping themselves by bailing. But for the rest of their life they have to live with that and they have to deal with the consequences – the criticism, and the damage to their reputation. Which means that the truth actually surrounds persevering in the fight – as uncomfortable as the fight may be in the moment, in the long term it’s more uncomfortable to quit. It’s ultimately less uncomfortable to fight on – even if the fighter loses they can be at peace.
Zerafa lied to himself. He believed that getting out of the fight gave him a purse without enduring a defeat or getting hurt. At 33 he’s also at an age at which he’s thinking about preserving himself for his life after boxing. In the time since the fight Zerafa – who won the first round and narrowly lost the second, when he would have felt Tszyu increase his intensity and therefore knew where the fight was headed – will have had to face up to the lie.
I believe he already regrets what happened. The reality is that if he doesn’t get the rematch – and he may well not – then his reputation may be damaged beyond repair.
There exists a way to sell a rematch between them – not least because of the controversy – but for everyone involved there also exists the risk that he might do the same thing again. All week in Brisbane I was hearing about how flakey Zerafa’s capable of being.
If he’s fortunate enough for a rematch to be agreed Zerafa would have to be the villain of the promotion, because everyone would be rooting for him to be knocked out. He would have to embrace that position and make people hate him even more, but it would take a strong mindset for him to do so and I’m not sure that that mindset is there.
The reality is that all of this has been made worse because he did this in a pay-per-view contest after accepting pay-per-view money in a big promotion. Perhaps if a rematch is agreed his purse should be withheld if he doesn’t reach, for argument’s sake, the seventh round, but would that mean we simply see him trying to survive like Jake Paul against Anthony Joshua?
Zerafa would have to show up to a rematch at his best mentally, as well as physically – from what I saw he didn’t believe in himself all week. A replacement opponent would also have to be paid something like $10,000 just to be in shape to fight, just in case Zerafa pulls out, and that replacement would instead get his purse. If Zerafa does fight, then that $10,000 can be taken from Zerafa’s purse to fund the opponent who trained to be on standby. Finally, on fight night he’d have to turn up. The rematch and the rivalry can be saved, but it means Zerafa being at his least likeable and embracing everything that will come his way.
For all of the frustration Tszyu and his team will still feel, I’m not sure quite how beneficial him winning would have been. He’d have been committed to world level despite only having 12 fights and such a lack of amateur experience. The lightning-in-the-bottle nature of his rivalry meant that taking the fight was the right thing to do, but I’m less convinced that putting him at world level just yet is. If the rematch isn’t going to happen then the profile of opponent he should be targeting is someone like Anthony Velazquez, who his brother Tim just fought and beat.
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It was also while I was in Brisbane that I first heard about Tim Tszyu fighting Errol Spence. I believe both Tszyu and Spence will see each other as ripe for picking. There’s at least a gauge to be able to judge Tszyu in 2026; it’s approaching three years since Spence last fought, in defeat by Terence Crawford, and his previous fight was a year before then, so how we’re supposed to judge him, I don’t know.
On paper it’s a good fight for both – it’s also a big fight. If Tszyu won, Spence would become his highest-profile opponent and he would return to the title picture at 154lbs. If Spence won he’s sufficiently high profile and respected that one win by itself would be enough. But it’s also a fight that it’s very difficult to make a favourite for, because it’s so difficult to determine not only what both of them still have but the form that they may be in.
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While I was out there I also learned more about Jai Opetaia and his career. Opetaia has just signed for Zuffa Boxing – and I believe he’s the only fighter of that level that they could have signed. I’ve been told he fights for purses that are way less than I expected and than he deserves. If I hadn’t been told that, I’d have been shocked at him signing for them.
The only way signing with Zuffa could appeal to a fighter of that level is if that fighter is already earning way less than his market value. He deserves the sort of money that means an offer from Zuffa would make him laugh.
Does anybody have any faith in Zuffa? Signing Opetaia is a great coup for them. But I’m not sure what other worthwhile cruiserweights would be tempted to sign for them – perhaps only Badou Jack. I can’t see Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez or David Benavidez or their promoters being tempted in any way by Zuffa. Ramirez and Benavidez are also cruiserweights who started out at super middleweights; Opetaia is a long-term cruiserweight who’s destined for heavyweight, so Zuffa will struggle to deliver either of those big fights for him either way.
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I’m close to finalising negotiations for me to fight Rolando Dy for a BKB Bareknuckle Boxing world title. I’d wanted to earn a title fight instead of immediately fighting for the title – unlike Conor McGregor, who always seems to tease that he will do so but who I doubt has the balls to fight anyone involved in BKB at all. I saw how hard those at BKB work and I didn’t want to look like I was jumping the line – it’s also why, in Tyler Goodjohn, who was favoured to beat me, I wanted a tough fight.
I relish the prospect of becoming a two-sport world champion, but it’s not going to be easy. The champion, Dy, also really interests me because no matter which way I look it at, I’m reminded of the six-degrees-of-separation theory. His father was Rolando Navarrete – once the WBC junior-lightweight champion – who beat Cornelius “Boza” Edwards in Italy in 1981 when I was still a baby living in Italy. Edwards was also in Lovemore Ndou’s corner when I won my first boxing world title, the IBF junior-welterweight championship, in 2007. It feels like it’s all coming together.
