Just days out from his stunning first-round knockout of Mexico’s number one junior middleweight Carlos Ocampo 35-3 (23), WBO interim champion Tim Tszyu 23-0 (17) is already plotting his next move.
The 28-year-old Tszyu from Sydney, Australia rolled through Ocampo in less than half a round at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia on Sunday afternoon local time, dropping him twice and stopping him at the 1:17 mark.
Now Tszyu is preparing for his next training camp in the United States to prepare for a proposed mandatory title shot against undisputed 154-pound champion Jermell Charlo in October.
When his team jump on a plane and where they will train is a closely guarded secret and for good reason.
“We have to be really careful about where we train, who can attend and how much information gets out,” Tszyu’s manager Glen Jennings told Fox Sports Australia.
“We won’t be disclosing much.
“This is the highest stakes and it’s a sad reality about boxing at the highest level that you have to take these precautions.
“But any advantage the other mob can get they would be taking.
“So we’ll be very cautious and the gym partners, and sparring partners, we’re already speaking with over there understand that.
“Those that have a role will be in the gym and anyone who doesn’t won’t be welcome.”
Tszyu was originally scheduled to face WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF and Ring Magazine champion Charlo, 32, of Texas on January 28 before the champ fractured two bones in his left hand in training shortly before Christmas.
While he has been recovering, Tszyu has fought twice. In March he knocked out Tony Harrison – the only man to defeat Charlo – in nine rounds and barely broken a sweat in dispatching Ocampo in short order.
The WBO has ordered Charlo to face Tszyu before the end of September but there appears to be a little bit of wiggle room there with an October date in the US now being targeted.
Jennings is well versed in how to run training camps having managed Tim’s famous father Kostya Tszyu during his career.
“So if we don’t know you, you can’t be there,” he said of the locked door policy.
“It’s a far bigger deal now too than even with Kostya because there were no iPhones back then, no social media… but now you can dump information from one camp to another in the space of seconds.
“We’ll give Tim as much protection as he needs to win those four belts.
“We can’t afford to lose this fight because of some small thing we’ve been lazy on, that’s not good enough.”
The cost for the eight week camp is estimated to be between $200K and $300K, but Jennings sees those sort of numbers as an investment rather than a cost.
“It’s serious dollars,” he said. “We don’t cut corners. We do things properly.
“Obviously nothing is cheap in America and we’ve got coach, chef, our team and all the remedial people who we have work on Tim who are located over there in the US.
“And then the sparring partners at this level, they’re on good coin as they should be.
“But even there, I don’t want to discuss exactly who we’ll be using otherwise there are opportunities for people to… well, let’s just say do the wrong thing.
“But the sparring partners will be very high level, multiple sparring partners to keep Tim guessing and on his toes.
“We’re already discussing potential guys and there’s plenty of interest.”
