The long-awaited U.S. debut of Tim Tszyu almost went sour.
Tszyu, the son of a boxing legend, was knocked down early by Terrell Gausha. He recovered, though, earning a win on Showtime from The Armory Saturday night.
“It was all so quick,” said Tszyu of the knockdown. “It was good that I faced adversity for the first time and I was able to come back. All respect to my opponent, Terrell Gausha. He’s a hell of a warrior and he’s a true gentleman. It was a simple flash knockdown. It was perfect timing. He’s a former Olympian. He’s got great credentials. That’s a great lesson for myself. I got back up and I dug deep.”
The son of Hall of Fame fighter Kostya Tszyu, Tim improved to 21-0 in his career with the win. The loss dropped Gausha to 22-3-1 in his career as all three judges scored the fight in favor of Tszyu.
“I felt that I had him in trouble after the knockdown,” said Gausha. “I tried to jump on him but he’s a tough fighter. I take my hat off to him. He came prepared. I was ready for 12 hard rounds too. I think I got a little too excited and I tried to jump on him. But he was in shape so he recovered pretty good. He just pressed the action. That’s what he does. I knew he was going to come like that, and we trained hard for that.”
A native of Rockdale, Australia, Tszyu was able to stay in control with a relentless body attack, landing 93 body shots compared to 29 from Gausha, according to CompuBox. Tszyu stayed close to Gausha throughout the action, eating the occasional counter right hand in order to land his 207 power punches, which outpaced Gausha’s 106. In addition to his edge in punch output, Tszyu was more accurate, landing 32% of his shots compared to 28% for Gausha.