Tony ‘Super Bad’ Harrison 29-3-1 (21) has refused to hold his tongue less than a week out from his fight for the vacant WBO interim junior middleweight title against Tim Tszyu 21-0 (15) at Qudos Arena in Sydney, Australia on Sunday local time.
This week the 28-year-old Tszyu said he has been even more regimented in his routine than his famous father Kostya, who unified the junior welterweight division and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011.
“I remember back in the day growing up with a dad who was so systematic and like a soldier, I feel like I’m even more systematic than him in the way I’ve approached this fight.
“It blows him away, like an amateur.”
But American Harrison, 32, who hails from Detroit, stuck the boot in to Tszyu about the Sydneysider’s claims that he trained harder than his father.
“He’s probably getting stories from people around him saying how undisciplined his father was, he probably does tick those boxes in terms of discipline and hard work, but is he better skilled than his father? Fuck no,” Harrison told News Corp Australia.
“He is 100 levels under his father, he ain’t a patch on his father.
“Everything is not about hard work and discipline, you’ve got to have skills. Everything has got to line up, you can’t have one without the other.
“His father had to have some kind of discipline and hard work to become champion and beat the guys he beat, it was crazy. Talent levels, he is light years under his father, light years.
“He’s not even a surface level of what his father was. His father was dangerous man and had heavy hands too, so you can’t force me to believe his father was undisciplined.”
The winner of the bout will have a mandate to face undisputed 154-pound champion Jermell Charlo and Harrison – the only man to defeat Charlo 35-1-1 (19) – firmly believes that will be him.
“I promise you this, he can’t come in with that reckless shit, because I’m a counter it every time,” Harrison said.
“He’s going to see that there’s levels… he’s got to show different aspects of his fight game.
“I’m the smartest, I don’t pride on myself being the toughest by far, I don’t pride myself on getting hit and having a hard chin, I don’t even want those attributes over my head.
“I pride myself on being the smartest, not getting hit the most, having longevity in a sport that has longevity for nobody.
“I pride myself on giving people an illusion they can hit something they can’t, then take it away and counter them.
“I’m Tony Copperfield.”
Tszyu vs Harrison will be broadcast on Main Event pay-per-view in Australia and Showtime in the United States.
