I sat down with Australia’s biggest name in boxing ahead of his long-awaited rematch with Sebastian Fundora. We talked about preparation, legacy, what it’s like growing up with his legendary father, life outside the ring, lessons from Alex Volkanovski — and plenty more.
Don’t miss the biggest boxing event of the year — featuring Tim Tszyu, Sebastian Fundora, Manny Pacquiao and Mario Barrios — live on Main Event via Kayo Sports, Sunday July 20. You don’t need a Kayo subscription to buy the Pay-Per-View.
Pre-order the PPV here: https://mainevent.kayosports.com.au/boxing/tszyu-vs-fundora-2.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I Boris and this is straight talk Tim and
young mate. Good haven't it for ages? Actually I saw
in March this year before the last one. Yeah, quick
quick had a quick interview then and we spoke earlier,
you know we and that was your obviously your first
fight coming off the previous twenty twenty four which wasn't
a great year for you, but you obviously brought yourself
(00:20):
back to where you want to be. Soon next month
you're going to be in the biggest boxing event of
the year with two world title fights on one card.
That's pretty amazing, pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Just announced the interim title as well for the other boys.
Three three times.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Wow, that's cool. And this of course is for our listeners.
This fight will be available to watching start of the
twentye to July exclusively on main event via KO Sports subscription.
Now there's no subscription required to purchase the pay for
you and go for it. I'll be watching it. Unfortunately,
won't be able to go over that MGM to watch Tim.
(00:58):
I've always wanted Actually, that's one of the state I've
always wanted to be to go to, Like that's some
of the most famous fights in our history fought there
pretty amazing. Are you excited about this? Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, Like dreams are made up from from these moments,
you know. So I'm fighting on the on the top
of the world stage. In they say that the modern
day are what are they called the Colisseum.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
There is a Colisseum. It's a big moment and people
have been fighting there for a long time, like there's
been some extraordinarily famous fights there. But then again, you're
sitting here in our studio and you've probably just come
in from Rockdale? Is that where you're still training?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So like it's quite interesting. You can come from something
very simple and humble like Rockdale where you train, and
I guess you've got the same training team that you've
always had. I don't mean you're spiring partners, but I
mean you're coaches, including family members. You're still probably manage
boy Gland and so nothing's really changed. You go from
(01:56):
something really quite humble, then the next thing on the
world stage. How do you manage that crap like that
must be that must I don't know that Does it
funk with your head a little bit? Or do you
just you just manage it?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
At first, at first, it was sort of like a
little bit of a shock, I guess. But the longer
you're you're sort of in that in the position you
you sort of embrace it now and it's not as
much of a shock anymore. I just enjoy That's It's
honestly what I live for now, just those those thrills,
those moments to be at that very top.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It is that because you you're seeking the adrenaline rush
or you you want to put yourself back to where
you were.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
No, I just it's it always reminds me of being
a young kid. You know, like as a young kid
I was, I was dreaming about these moments. I used
to like, I used to get a little soccer born.
I used to punch it in the pool boy myself
and I was very very young, and at the same
time I used to announce myself and think I was
coming into MGM grand you know. So so now I'm
(02:59):
actually living a childhood dream of mine and just have
to enjoy the process.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
How are you feeling, like physically, no sort of injuries
or you know, physically good touch wood, Yeah, you're good.
It's only like what three weeks away, really, it's just
a little over three weeks just around the corner. Let's
just take me where take me to where you would
be right now. So you've got to make a certain weight,
(03:28):
et cetera. You don't really have that much trouble with
weight your relative to other people. It's probably a better
way putting it. But how you where are you? You're
on course in terms of weight management? Do you feel strong?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I feel I feel like I'm in a different, different
phase right now. You know, Like my weight's been better
than usual. Usually it's a bit higher, so now it's
it's a bit lower, which is good.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
When do you put that down to discipline?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Discipline? Sometimes you have those mid midweeks and you eat
a bit more than you should, more and more about
like scientific base for me, you know. So it's been
really really strict by the by the core. So everything
is everything's going according to plan.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And does it have anything to do with your home life,
your family life person?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I'd say my last my last fight, I had a
bit of problem cutting weight, and I came out and said,
you know what I had. I had a bit of
an issue and it was hard, but I did come
come back from my wedding. I was I had to
put on a bit away from them, so it was
a bit harder to cut. But this time it's it's
really been very, very disciplined from from the very get go.
(04:43):
So everything's going down slowly and home life is just
everything's just comfortable as well. Everything just makes sense.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And how long will you spending? It was obviously you're
going to winning and leave you and leave soon to
go to the US.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, I'll be Friday the fourth, so two.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Weeks, right, And what's the acclimation like the acclimatization process. Yeah,
once you get there, what do you do? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well I originally went for the presser press conference, and
it took me roughly two days to adapt. I was
going to go a bit earlier to Vegas, but I
decided to take it two weeks before. I think that's
plenty of time. I actually spoke to Alex Okanowski. He
told me about his experiences. He's been doing it a lot,
(05:28):
flying into America, so I sort of went by his
word and how he's experienced it and sort of just
guided my own way because I used to go two months,
three months before the fight. It's a long time to
spend away from home as well. You're living in a
house full of men. It's a whole different environment. You're
away from home, it's different feelings. So for me having
(05:52):
that comfort at home, being able to come to Vegas
full fight night and for the way cut and just
getting in and out, well, my dad used to do
what Volkowski does. That's what I am doing for this fight.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
That's interesting you spoke to Volk you know, like he's
in the UFC sense MMA. He would go down as
definitely as one of the greatest in MMA and probably
or definitely one of Australia's greatest UFCMMA fighters of all time.
And he made a good comeback, he got his belt back.
(06:27):
I think, do you ever think to yourself how much
Australians loved Tim Zoo and love Alex Volkanovski and they
really are hanging out for you to do exactly the
same again, do you get a.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Cent Yeah, get that sense. I think we both embraced
the Aussie culture and for guys to just you know,
have a crack at it. So I think that's what
we represent.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
But it's I mean, we're obviously gie advertisers, a brilliant
cruise ofweight, but he doesn't seem to get the same
sort of attention as you and Volk and I don't
know why, but nonetheless you that is the position you
both are in. On one hand, it's pressure, but on
the other hand, it's pretty cool to be held up.
(07:09):
You sort of like a bit of a hero cold hero.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a it's it's a big responsibility,
you know, a big responsibility. But it gives me a
lot of pleasure in life to be able to have
people that you can rely on and that you can
that you're you're relying to as well and represent And
it's a great feeling.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Because you know, I interviewed lots of people, and funnily enough,
I'm very rarely doing it on a Friday. And when
the boys said they could we could you could fit
us in on for a Friday, I was all off
because you know, I mean, you're a kid compared to me,
and you know, I remember watching your dad and I
even get excited about getting the oportunity to do an
(07:51):
interview because you you are iconic, and not not just
you've become you've changed. I mean my sense and Almos
spoke to a mar Much is that you'll become more
relaxed and more chilled and you're sort of seem to
be at peace with yourself and maybe probably more importantly,
maybe a lot of us are worried about how's he
(08:12):
going to respond or come back from last year, And
you seem to be so sordid organized in your own mind.
And I can see it in your eyes. And I
often say this about fighters, like I can sort of
basically tell how somebody is going to go. It sounds stupid,
but like just from their eyes, your eyes look really relaxed.
(08:33):
You've still got that sort of murderous look in your
face too, by the way, scary look, but you do
look chilled. Yeah, I'm feeling.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Definitely more more comfortable, more comfortable in yourself. Yeah, just
being in the position that I'm just I think I
think a lot of gratitude, a lot of gratitude right now,
and yeah, just feeling comfortable from it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Fondora's by the way, I'm bit confused is because I
thought you might be fighting Thurman. I wasn't sure so
because he called you out after Rock and you know,
you had Joey Spencer, Like I sort of thought they're
both warm up fights, but you know, we have to
respect the other fight. Of course, great but they were
both warmup fights, and then Spencer. Then Furma called you
(09:19):
out after Brock and I thought, that's the setup. They've
set me up here for sure, and and I thought
you'd be fighting him this year. Later this year, we're
around about now. How is it that Fondora dropped in
like it was or was Thurman never really on?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
No, Thurman was on, Urman was on. I think that's
where it was going to collide. But I had this
feeling after the fight. As soon as the Joey Spencer
fight finished, I had this feeling that, you know, I
have to I have to go back to that chapter
one last time, and I have to take advantage of
(09:59):
what I got in front of me and create a
new chapter in my story.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
You're you're and I've spoken to your your team in
the past, particularly in March this year, and you're not
one to shy away from the tough fights, irrespective of
what they say or do. I mean, because people keep
talking about, you know, why didn't Tims, why did his
team stop the fight? You know, after whatever around it
has to be for you to hold your title, and
(10:24):
I think it's round four or something like that, and
then they all I've been told by many people that
Tim's side of dude, you're sort of a man on
your own, like you make your own calls. No one's
telling you what to do, so it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Would be a problem as well.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well then you're then, but you're very confident in yourself.
So preparing to fight someone like Fundor again, who's a
he's got like ten inch reach on you. You know,
he's a giant in terms of height. He's a left hander.
He pinches nice and straight. So you know, your pressure
style of fighting might have to change a little bit.
(11:04):
What do you do to prep for this? Now, no one,
you've already been through one route. I forget about their
clash of the moment, but you've already been through that.
You know you've been you know, swapping punches, you know
how he fights. You build a different strategy.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I think we with this camp, we've actually had to
create a strategy. Last time, it was a week's notice
that we had. Yeah, I sort of just went in there, and.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
So you might explain that to him because you were
supposed to fight somebody else.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, right, supposed to fight Thurman and on two weeks
got two weeks notice, I get the call that Thurman's
out bicyp injury. What do we do? I just spent
ten weeks in Vegas, Big camp, flew everyone in. It
was PBC's first Amazon Prime event. So it was a big,
(11:52):
big spectacle. It was on in the Temboller and it
was it was it was such a big deal and
it was I was living my dream. Of course, So
we have to go find an opponent. First one was
Fundor you know, no, he just came off a loss.
He gets Mendoza and I just beat Mendoza, so he
(12:13):
got into the position straight away to fight for the
world title, unified unifying world titles. So WBC and WBO
and yeah, I had a week's too, one week to
prepare basically, and ideally, it wasn't like a tactical preparation.
It was let's just get in there, find some spiring
(12:36):
partners and just practice on some some little things that
we can work on and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It wasn't well strategized or you didn't have enough time
to do.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It, of course. And you know, like now, when I've
had the ten weeks to prep it's not about what works,
it's about what doesn't work. You know, you cop a
few and you find out what's not working, and that's
that's where the real progress is at. And I didn't
I wasn't able to have that, But this time I do,
and it's a it's a better feeling.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Does it does the southpaor style? Will that change you much?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
There's a little bit technical, a little bit different techniques.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah. But has he got heavy hands?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Who from what I remember, not much.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, he's got this weird punches. They're like lanky punches. Yeah,
but he does have these sneaky shots that can get you,
and I remember I remember feeling them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
So like because he doesn't seem to go for the
body much because he's probably doo tall anyway, he.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Does actually the body he's got, he's got a few
sneaky shots and he's it's weird. He's got this style,
but he's got this upper cuts.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, I remember the other kid.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
He's got the uppercuts and his body shot and he
basically uses his front hand to find range and then
sometimes uses the backhand to use it inside range.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Because I noticed in the fight against Joe Spencer in
the first round, he came out different to Tim Zuo.
In the past. You were very I don't want to
use word careful because that's probably underselling it. But you
were very purposeful. You look like, hang on, I'm not
rushing this. I'm not going to put pressure on him.
I'm just going to see what he's got. That's different
(14:17):
to what I've normally seen you. You normally you're pretty confident.
You get out there and you take control straight away,
will you sort of fill it out? A little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Hard to fill out because he goes straight away for
the for the punches, he creates the volume, so you
sort of have to He.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Does have a lot of volume.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That's his biggest key. He's got volume. He's always throwing
punches and he's always at a distance to land, So
you know you've got to come in different ways to
approach that. It's if you're going to be filling out
for three or four rounds, you're going to be losing
those rounds that you have to win back. So you know,
you sort of have to start strong straight away.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So for someone like him, you're not You've got to
take his space away, but to take the distance away,
which is what he wants. He was distance. If you
tell you this is the way that means you've got
to sort of crowd him a little bit, which means
you've got to walk into him.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
A few, a cop a few to land a few.
But at the same time he's very good on the
inside as well. He lends a few a few of
these sneaky shots. So you want to stay at a
certain range where you're comfortable and he's not comfortable.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
If you had your time again, would you have because
you know, you could have stopped the fight, or your
team could have said to the refree, look, we're not
going to go any further, and the belts would remain
remain with you and it wouldn't look bad because it
was obviously you can't stop the bleeding. It just it's
easy enough to say, listen, if we can't start the bleeding,
(15:48):
which they couldn't, we could see it was blood everywhere.
If you had your time again from a just from
a business point of view, being the world title holder,
would you have changed the way you handled the cut?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
No? No, Just for the fact that I was able
to show who I am for the whole world to
see character. Yeah, yeah, and that's worth more for me.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
That's interesting. So it's because there's always seemed to me
to be important for tim Zu to show the world
who he is, not just the son of Courses. But
I'm Timsu. And you often used to say that when
you used to win your fights. I'm Timsu. But it's
how Why is it so important? Do you think for
(16:43):
a young man like you, who grew up with a
father like you did, to establish his own position in
the world, In the world You're not talking about down
at Rochdale, You're talking about in the world.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, I think it's I think identity. You want to
be able to your own brand, create your own what
you are, who you are and what you what you value,
and what you what you're on about. Because my dad's
a whole different character. He's me and him a complete opposite,
you know, So what people think about my dad is
(17:16):
completely different to what people should be thinking about me.
So that's why I really wanted to create the Timsus
story and not and not anyone else.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And do you think you've done that at this point.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
To a certain extent. I still think there's there's a
lot more to go, a lot more to prove, a
lot more to work on. But I think we're on
a good road.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Is that one of your big drivers in life. Two
to continue on that road.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I had actually a little think about it. I think,
what's my biggest My biggest role model would probably be
my dad, but he's also my biggest competition at the
same time, you know, no disrespect like that, without any disrespect,
you know. Yeah, I'm able to surpass him. Then we've
(18:04):
sort of created something for our legacy, for the Zoo
last name to live on forever, you know. So I
think that's that's the driving factor for me.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Do you discuss that with your dad? It's not something
that's you know, hey, Dad don't want to talk to
about this, or or he said hey mate, he probably
says in Russian these days, but let's talk about this. No, No,
he was that old. Is your dad old school in
that regard in terms of our father son?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, now, no, No, my dad's in all honesty, I
don't I don't really talk to him much. We don't
really have much interaction.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Day to day as in just yeah, just in general.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I can't of remember the last time I spoke to him,
in all honesty. But he's there. He's there, but he's
at the same time, he's not always there and doing
his thing. He's just doing his thing. He's sort of
just living really low key. I don't know if it's
if it's just the way he wants to do it,
but yeah, I just I just respect it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I guess maybe from his point of view living in
the limelight forever and then going back to Russia like
you want to Rush's greatest athletes, it'd probably been even
worse in that regard. Does he live Moscow? Where does
he live?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Moscow, So like that's probably pretty foreign and expectations. He
probably just wants to.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Oh, my dad's gone from from here to just completely
mellow down. And he's got two little kids now, so
he's sort of enjoying the moment of raising them because
he wasn't able to really do it with us. I
think that's his main priority in life now. And he
stays away from boxing, he stays away from really a
lot of things.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, it's funny, you should say, because in the costure,
if you're listening to this, I actually understand that process
as a father in my case, because I was too
interested in business and not having time with my own kids,
and I didn't really spend that much time my kids.
I've got grandkids now, so I'm a much different grandfather
(20:12):
to what I was as a father. In fact, I'm
probably better grandfather than I was a father, and better
to my kids as well. But sometimes, you know, you
just made me think when you said that about cost,
it made me think to myself, maybe I should reach
out to my own sons, because we as parents don't
know the effect we have on our kids. And we
don't mean to have a bad effect, but you can
(20:34):
have a not a bad effect, but you can have
an effect, and as a result of that, that sort
of starts to form how they live their lives. And
I guess it's important because I'm old school, and you know,
my generation did give me. You didn't give kids a hug.
You can't make it up. Let's go footy, let's go
to school, eat your breakfast, doing home work. I'll see
(20:56):
in a week.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
My mom was like that. I think my mom was
an old school but my dad a little bit. He
was a bit more softer, was he? Yeah, growing up
he was a bit softer.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Wow, he's a big soft And you do you think
you'd I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I don't know. I don't know what I'll be. I
think I think I've got more of the probably a
more a bit of a cold cold. I'm not that soft.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You're not soft. No, video always don't have kids this, no, no,
But how's that going in relation to you? You're married
or your partner? Yeah? And what are you talking about there?
What are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
What's the about kids? Oh? One day, God willing.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
You've got things to do, you got stuff to do.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
It's funny, I've just been boxing has just been my
sole focus. I've been like married to the game for
for such a long time. It's just hasn't They never
really used to be in my mind, you know, even
marriage and taking that next step. It's always been just boxing, boxing,
all right? When's the next fight? Or wins the next fight?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
All right?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
When we're on next what are we doing? It's just
it's always been about goals, chasing goals, and that's just
how it's been.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
How old are you now?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Just turned thirty?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah? So, and what's your wife's name?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Alexandra?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Alexandra? What nationalities? Alexandra?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
She's Macedonia.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
But okay, so Alexandra in terms of culture, she probably
wants have a family. So she ran your same same
age group. So do you feel as though over the
next few years there could be another Zoo run around
the joint.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, I'm sure there would be. Sure.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I mean it's because you know you're you were running.
We're definitely running around during your dad's period of being
a world title holder. Yeah, I mean I've seen I've
seen so many photographs and you on the stage standing
there with him, like and by the way, you look
exactly like him. But clearly you've got a bit of
your mother in you as well. You're better looking the
don't tell him, I'm telling him, but like your your future.
(23:07):
You know. Australians because I'm thinking this is very romantic.
I don't mean romantic and it loves it. I mean romanticizing.
But Australians would love to see a Tim Zuo with
Alexandra and his child standing there with a belt like
That's like that would make us so happy in Australia
and it sounds ridiculous on a national level. We think
(23:29):
those things are important. They really are, Tim like, they
are so important. I mean when Volt got his belt back, like,
Australia was so happy. Helps it. His good bloke, a
good person, a good Australian, respects his background but a
good Australian works hard trains hard accepted his defeat, went
back and start all over again and clawed it back.
(23:52):
And I think and when you see him in how
he's very much a family man. When you see him
and you see Tim, so I think there is a
to me, there's a massive connection between the two. And
you know we need we you know, unfortunately, we need
heroes in our world. For you, who's your hero? Yeah,
(24:18):
good question? Or you just or you're the person who's
destined to be the hero and you therefore don't have one.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I don't know. Actually I'm not sure. I'm not sure
who my hero, who my hero is? Who I look
up to? I guess in all honesty, Volk is a big,
big inspiration. Do you talk to me much here and there?
Which sometimes shout through through social media and stuff?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But have you met up yet?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yes, of course, But but yeah, someone in terms of
how I'm living, there's there's not many people in that
top of industry i'd say that I look up to
except for Volk.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
That's interesting, and he lives in Volk's lives all about fundamentals, cooking, family, loves,
going to the farms. Obviously, he loves his gym, he's
fight Jim, he's and he loves his craft. Do you
love your craft?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Boxing?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I think I'm obsessed with it, you know. I think
it's just always always on, It's always on the mind,
and from a very young age, it's always it's always
been there.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
So you're on the card with Pakia. What about someone
like him? Is he someone?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
What is he?
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Forty five six?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, he's not.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
For history's pretty amazing. I don't know how many divisions
he's gone through seven six or seven something like that
and still there.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, still fine for yeah, crazy, Well you know what,
like used to think, Oh wow, it's going to be
so crazy, like Manipak and the car blah blah blah
all that. Now it's like it's it's it's where you
feel most at home, you know, this is this is
where you belong.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You meant him at the Bressa Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanboy
or fan boy a little bit yea, yeah, yeah, did
a little bit. Yeah, you know I had sparring with him,
really yeah, I had sparring with him in twenty nineteen
in the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Philippines, Yeah, I was. I was there for two weeks
in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I got invited and be apart partner for him.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Partner, Yeah, which was pretty cool. That was the first
time I met him.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And what period was that again, that's nineteen that's uh,
that's only five six years ago. When did you find yeah,
Winni fourth Thurmon. That wasn't the horn period? No, right, Yeah.
What was it like to spa Minipac?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, it was It was interesting, It was cool. It
was I could see how busy he was there, how
he's loved by so many people, how many people rely
on him. It was insane. There was a job for everything,
you know, there was a there was some guy that
used to have a town used to just like get
(27:14):
rid of the flies while he was doing set up.
I was like, sounds like a pretty good job.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
He's a pretty cool guy, like you know, to me,
he's one of the outstanding or standouts in the boxing world.
He's always maintained his integrity. He's given a lot back
to people in his country. He's like adored probably globally
he's adored. And he's actually become a politician, as you know.
And one days there he was thinking about and becoming
(27:40):
the president of the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I think he just he just ran for him.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Something happened.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What happened?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I get there, But like, would Tim Zoho ever think
about doing something not politician, because he's giving back in
a big way. I mean, and he's obviously earned a
lot of money, like a lot of money a long
period of time, and he's probably in his country he'd
be extraordinarily wealthy. And therefore what you say is he
(28:09):
looks after people. And that sort of takes it back
to what you're talking about before. That's gratitude, that's and
the best way to show gratitude is give back, pay forward,
whether it's money or time effort. Do you sometimes ever
get the sense that, look, I wouldn't I go and
traveling to a hospital and checking in kids and do
(28:32):
you do that sort of stuff?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I haven't done it, but it's it's definitely been the
it's definitely been in the in the process of organizing
something like.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
That on the radar, so to speak, because.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
We've been wanting to do homeless really feeding the homeless.
I think it's it's a sad scenario here in Australia. Yeah,
around the world actually, and yeah, I think it's a
biggin act if you.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Well, I'm not going to say if you, I'm backing
you to win the fight and I actually think that
you will wear the guy down and an out smart
amount strategy. Josh, I've seen your your fight smarts. They're
pretty good. You can prepare all the strategies, like you
have your tactics and all that sort of stuff prepared.
(29:23):
But how much different is it once you're in the rink.
You know, you can have a strategy and you can
have all your tax all your train You might train
with a six foot five left hander for the last
whatever a period of time. Isn't all of a sudden
you guess, hang on, it's not working ring smarts? Can
you talk to me about ring smarts? You know, like
what does Tim Zu do when he feels something? And
(29:46):
how how how hard is it to adjust make adjustments?
Taking away from when you're injured, I want to talking
about that, but just where you're going to get a
surprise about something, anything that's not working anymore, or they're
doing something to have to defend. How do you a
about it?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I think you have to find your base what works
at all times. If it's using your legs, if it's
just a little reset, you know. And in a fight,
there's there's always going to be scenarios at work, there's
always going to be scenarios that don't work. But there's
also got to be a neutral ground where you're where
(30:21):
you're just feeling sweet, just feeling yourself. Yeah, if it's
moving around, if it's throwing quick jabs, if it's throwing
speed or whatever it is, you just got to find
that base and be able to be switched on the
whole time, you know. And it's easy, easier said than done,
of course, But all we have to do is concentrate
(30:43):
for thirty six minutes.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, it sounds easy, it's a long.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Time, a long time. You can't not concentrate for tens
for two seconds or it's going to get clipped. So
it's just the concentration at all times. And I think
during training you sort of feel when you lose concentration.
There's times where you throw a shot, you get a
bit tired, you're like a shit, you look left, you
(31:10):
look right, and bomb you get coped with another shot.
You know, your mind has to be non stop the
whole time in the game.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So I've always saw you as a bit of a
surgeon when you're fight, because you just tend to break
guys down pretty quickly in the first couple of rounds
and then you go after him that process of did
you just explain when you get tired, so when fatigue
sets in, maybe you could explain why it's so much
harder to make decisions when there's fatigue. I mean, we
(31:42):
see in ragul league all the time. We see really
good rugby league players who get fatigued to make wrong
decisions in terms of tackling, and you know they put
their head the wrong spot, they're out. And your favorite team,
the Rabbits, you have your back rower, your captain, he
does it a lot and wonderful player. Yeah, smart at hell,
knows technique, but all of a sudden he gets fatigued
(32:04):
and something happens because it does a lot of work,
you know. And Radley is the same with the Roosters.
He does the same thing. He gets fatigued. What do
you do when you start to feel for tea coming on?
Do you sort of can you use your ring craft
and just stay.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I think the biggest the biggest experience you learn from
from getting better in an experience in the ring is
being able to hide when you rest, being able to
hide when you're taking breaths, putting it, putting it all on,
sort of showing the showing the difference, you know, like
(32:37):
you can't bring a relentless style that's throwing four hundred,
five hundred punches each round and doing it over the
course of twelve rounds. You know, it's just humanly impossible.
As much as you train, it's going to burn you out,
you know. So it's just being able to find the race.
And I remember Floyd maybe he used to do it
when he was in the clinch. He used to take
a couple of deep breaths and used to be frustraight away. Know,
(33:00):
it's just about the recovery.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, I mean someone who was sort of probably the
closest that I've ever seen who could throw hundreds of
punches around it. It was finic, like probably the fittest
fighter ever though, but also crazy. Jeff Well, yeah, you
have to be sort of crazy to be out. You
have to have a sort of a crazy mind to
be like that. And he's like that and everything he does.
(33:23):
If he's sitting here now, he'd be he's punches, but
he'd be sort of interacting. You know, that's how he is.
But not many people can do that. And there's a
there's a skill that I've watched you do, Like I
don't know when you're doing, but I know you you
managed to recover. But it's they call it ringcraft, but
like you're able to you're not necessarily backing off, but
you're able to give yourself opportunity to sort of reset.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, So what's my My thing is when I'm in
front of someone, a lot of the time, they're under
the pressure, they're under the pump, and there's nothing coming
out of me, Like I'm standing there just making them tremble,
and that burns a lot of energy and from their
point of view, from their point of view, but from
(34:07):
my point of view, there's zero energy being wasted at all.
And I think that's probably one of my greatest skills
I have in boxing.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
And it's probably pretty important as you're mature as a fighter,
is to understand your strengths. Probably also your weaknesses too,
but like it's really important to know what your strengths
are and to focus on those things. I mean, it
is a pretty big strength of yours because I mean,
you tend to you go the whole. You can go
the distance, and you can look pretty fresh towards the
(34:36):
end because and if they're starting to get a little
bit tie the legs, of course, that's when you come
in hard, You come in and take over. So I
mean often, you mean here, i'd say stupid things they go,
you know, I'll knock him out in the fifth round
as all that sort of stuff. But you know that
you're going to have to go the distance with this
bloke because he's quite good. Course, you know, he's obviously
(34:59):
correct me so, but he's he's no bushover and and
but my gut feeling is that I'm feeling as this
is going to go the distance. And I mean last
time went the distance, and you know it was, you know,
a split decision, notwithstanding all your injuries. You must that
must actually give you confidence. Yeah, you know, you go
(35:20):
to the distance with him, Yeah, of course, and you
know you can copy punches.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I was saying before, he should have killed me the
first time, you know, like with all the disadvantages, Yeah,
he should he should have really should.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Have cleaned up earlyamp his mark. Yeah, you totally totally
if you win this fight, and I'm sure you're going
to win it. If you win this one, what's going
through your head? Are you thinking? Well? Who do I
fight next?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Is the problem? It's always there's there's.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
The next We should you not think about it?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I shouldn't be thinking about it, But you do, like
to a certain extent, Yeah, a certain extent.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Probably not right now anyway, definitely not now, but like
you dream about it.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Of course you envision stuff. And the thing with boxing
it sound predictable. You know, you don't know what's going
to happen, or what's around the corner, or what opportunities come.
It's it's it's crazy. Would you consider someone like Charlo Charlo? Yeah,
I mean he'd have to drop it back to the divisions.
(36:16):
He's one above you, isn't he. No, he's still in
the same divisions. So that's one sort of unfinished business. Yeah,
we were. I was in Vegas and we walked past
each other. Really, he's he was walking like he was
walking to his tape to his seat, and I didn't
notice him. And then I sort of noticed him, and
I see him he's not looking and I sort of
(36:37):
just like got ready. I was like, I don't know
what's going to happen. But he's got his boys and
by myself with with with my manager. And then he
says hi to my manager and I was like, oh,
fair enough. And he looks at me and I was
like and he goes, congratulations what and he goes for
getting married and I was like, oh, thanks. He just
kept walking.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I was like, oh sweet, he's obviously following you on
social media.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
It must have been.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Because it's I don't know, what's you know, like your
second fight last year, last year in twenty twenty four,
the name I always Mataro Liev. Would you consider him again? Yeah,
he's the IBF champion.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I would wouldn't do the rehydration clause, but no, tell
me through that reigation clause. So the day of the flight,
you have to weigh ten pounds. That's it, no more,
no more, yep.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So so I'm not Maybe I will say it. It's
he obviously cut the hell out of his weight, but
it must have rehiderated pretty hard. I'm sure because you
look much bigger.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I heard plenty of stories, but
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
So, so he made the weight in the morning, Yeah,
And I made the weight in the morning. As well,
So it's two two ways, but usually i'd put on
much more Tom, I wasn't able to.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
What do you have any thoughts on that? Scientific thoughts.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's the IBF and he caught me with the first punch,
and I think that's what that's all it was. I
had concussion straight away.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah. Did you get the you buzzed brain, headache, everything, everything?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, and then that's hard after that.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
And then I was just standing up like a zombie.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah. Yeah, So your whole neurological system sort of closes down,
your nervous system, so yeah, your brain does.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Not all constrained that nothing works everything.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
And I was surprised you so because I saw the hit.
It well you know it looked like it heard like
not physically didn't hurt, no hit, but like its inside
your brain, that's what it was. Yeah. And what do
you do when you go when you go back and
you talk to your corner and I mean, what do
you say, like do they ask you how you feel
a mate like to come in? What? What what's the
(39:02):
process during during that round?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I don't know what was happening.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
You don't remember anything? Wow, No, it's just on instinct.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, I was in my head. I was like, you
want to get me out of here, You're gonna have
to kill me. Keep walking forward.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I remember when I interviewed you many years ago with Volk,
there was you, Vulcan, Brock and Gambosis. None of you
were world chambers at that stage. And one of the things,
this is maybe six seven years ago, I remember seeing
you fight down the Croatian Club. Might have been your
first profile. Was that your first profile was at the
(39:44):
Amateurs no themages there there. I remember maybe eighteen kid
and I remember seeing it and I went with Jeff
and I remember we're watching it. We're watching Balal Hackaway
and I remember and I think you must have been
on the same You might have been a pro am night.
You might have been yeah, yeah, And I looked at
(40:05):
you and made you had that sterely look in your eyes.
And then we interviewed you back on the My Mental
Show many years ago. I thought to myself, this kid's
a killer like you had none of this, none of that.
You were the business serious and you had that sort
of thought. My god, it's scary looking dude like this
(40:25):
kid you can do anything. And I did predict it
would be the world champion, and you did become obviously
became the world champion. Is there was in those days,
the younger days? Was that more Tim's front? Was that
Tim the younger blow?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah? I was just young, hungry and determined, and no
one else existed besides besides me and my career and
the trophy and the accolades. That's all that mattered. And
it's still like that to some extent.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, it's funny how we grow up, but we actually
don't have the same perhaps the same ambition, the same ambition.
It's you have ambitioned, but it's not the same ambition,
not the same ambition driver. But you become better at
it because you become a different type of fighter. You
become like it's a it's no longer a game. Now
(41:25):
it's your life. This is my life, this is what
I do, this is what I'm good at. Do you
ever think to yourself, maybe I should become an architect,
or because I think your brothers is an architect, he's
an architect.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's that was
the biggest problem that we had with my mom with
arguments was that even when I started my career and
She's like, oh, you always need something to fall back on,
But I was like, I don't want to have anything
to fall back on. I just want to do this
to one hundred percent and go all in and see
(42:03):
see where we can go from there, you know, And
that's how it's been for me.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Can something like this provide for you and your family
future family for the rest of your life?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I think so it depends how you want to live,
of course.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, of course. If you Yeah, if you want to
live in a big flashboat, probably probably not. But but
you boxes can get paid a lot of money if
you at that, If you get to the level, you
can get paid a lot of money. And if you
can stay there and keep defending, keep defending, you can
make more than you UFC guys. Ever, Nakida, he's fighting
(42:41):
later this year?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Is Merkuda fighting?
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I'm not sure. I'll be honest with you. Do you does.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Nikita do work as an architect? Where does you just
do the boxing?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I'd say he does a lot for himself. He builds
a lot, like how it builds Wow, just himself can
do it himself. Yeah, just physically just builds stuff. Just
a home. Uh. If you tell him to. He's his goal,
I think is to build a house out of wood
that he's going to pick from trees.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
He cut the trees down.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
He's going to cut the trees down.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
So he's got different ambitions. But yeah, that's how that's
how he's always really been. His mind's very creative.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
And there's a rapha fight. There's there's no announcement of
a rap.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Honestly, like I hear it in the media, but that's
about it.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I saw Zarafa also much and I asked him. I said,
it's the blue going on with him because that was
he had a fight before around that period and way
way you're doing it. But nonetheless he uh, he had
a call to do it. He's always going to do it.
But he said, I actually don't have a blue at him.
(44:03):
How do you feel about him?
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I don't know. I don't have any issues.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Yeah, I just feel the media builds it up a bit.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
The media, of course builds it up, but I think
that's just yeah, like if he was living in a
different error, Zarafa would have wouldn't have many fights. But
he's got these sort of lingering around in his Name's
always talked about in the media because of the zoos. Yeah,
so that's that's about it.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
What do you think about So Dana White's actually promoting
on behalf of Turkey his first fight come out Canella Crawford.
I reckon about Dana White promoting well, but all of
it and they also those two.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, I think it's it's a massive fight. I think
it's a big fight. I think Crawford wins in my opinion.
I think he's going to be a bit too smart.
I think Canalo has dropped down a bit in his
last maybe two three years. But yeah, it's an interesting,
interesting story because Canelo's for a while though, like he
(45:10):
doesn't fight often, but he's a beautiful fighter. He's unbelievable,
one of one of the greats moves.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Canelo's sort of your tough Mexican style, hard ass.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
But you know what, when I when I saw the
Canelo fight week when I was in Vegas last time,
it's unreal. The Canelo brand and what he brings to
the people, the way it goes, the fight and the atmosphere,
the passion of Mexican supporters. It's big, you know, and
(45:45):
Mexican boxing is so big and it's just it's like
a religion there. So I understand the passion that he brings.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
What do you think about Dana White? So Dana and
White actually told me when I interviewed him earlier this
year with the premiere, he told me that he had
been approached by Turkey to take control of the boxing game,
and the whole month later he announced it. And it
(46:16):
seems to me that that movement, apart from the fact
that the fighters get paid a lot of money big dough,
that Daniel actually tried to do for that what he's
done for the UFC. You know, one of the issues
in boxing and has never happened in your case, but
one of the shoes in box has a lot of mismatches,
as you know, and it's not great for boxing sometimes,
(46:40):
you know. I think we saw one this year. I
think with Thurman Brock was just you know, shouldn't happen
for Brock's sake, broxywood kid, you know, and I just
wish it never happened. And whereas what Dana said to
me is that he's going to make sure it's not
like that. It's going to be more like UFC. You're
(47:00):
your inform and his inform. But even playing correct. Do
you think that would be good for boxing?
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Oh? Yeah, I think I know you, I think it
would be good. Yeah, I think it's it's great for
the fans. I think boxing in one organization is a
bit hard.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh, that'll never happen.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, I think it's too big. Yeah, to just move
it to one.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
It's also too political and it's different to the UFC.
But because you want to get on television get part
of paper, you've got to go through UFC. But there's
lots of other owns for boxing. But like but nonetheless
just sort of presenting an even, sort of even tempered
(47:42):
process of all the fighters being fighting against each other
and paying fighters a lot of money. For me, a
fighter should get paid as much as possible because it
could be the last fight through any for any reason.
They could lose it, they could get injured, or whatever
the case may be. You know, they provide incredible entertainment
around the world. Like the amount of money that gets
(48:03):
made on a fight night, and today more so than
ever before. Putting yourself in the ring for ten or
twelve rounds is like not even point one percent of
the population would even consider it. They would just wouldn't
(48:24):
and then all the training are to do and all
the sacrifices you've got to make. You know, in your case,
you know you've just done this. You haven't didn't go
to university, you didn't become a builder, you didn't become
a plumber. You're giving yourself and you don't set yourself
up for future unless you win. It's all or nothing. Yeah,
of course every time. So it should be maximum amount
(48:46):
of money relative to the amount of money that take
overall the fighters should get most of the dough Like actors,
they should get most of the dough. I therefore would
put to you, do you think that this might actually
kick start bigger results for fighters around the world and
all the other in all the other platforms in other words,
boxing is I mean, and all the other platforms. In
(49:06):
other words, all those people that compete with the howdis
or Turkey environment will have to start to match. We'll
try to match the same amount of money that day.
And White's going to offer fighters to fight on his cards.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, I'm not sure how much they'll be offering though.
Everything's based on revenue, you know, like if a certain
fight generates a certain amount, then the fighter is going
to make that much more. A lot of fighters unfortunately
outprice themselves and don't get a gig. Yeah, and a
(49:41):
lot of fighters think they're worth a certain amount, but
they're actually not. At the same time, when a promoter
puts a fight on, it has to financially make sense,
or if they're going to be doing losses all the time,
it just doesn't make it. That won't last exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Well, I just I know you're a sales fan, but
we've got to play fighting a Ruster's player, which is
versus What do you think about that one of them?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, I like Gal Yeah, Yeah, I like it's pretty tough,
but he's going to be yeah, like like how he thinks. Honestly,
I think it's five years too late.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
For both of them, for both, but we've always wanted
to see it.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, But honestly, I'm that interested in it.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Is that because you're is that because you know you're
a person, is the top of your craft, but also
your skill based relative to their skill bases, Like you know,
it's like different different planets.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
I enjoy watching rugby players punch on with each other.
I think it's fun. Of course, they're not going to
be crazy pro boxes there is no expectation of that.
But they bring certain punches and like they have some
fun in there. But I just think the the two
boys are a bit old, that's all.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
It is.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Like if Goal when Gal was fighting, I really enjoyed
watching gals fights like him and Justin Hodges, just just
Hodges would knock him down just then go gets up
and knocks him out. It was it was fun, you know,
it's what you want to watch sometimes watching the purest
boxes jab jab jab and move around for twelve rounds.
No one cares. It's not interesting. But sometimes when these
(51:24):
guys have a crack, it's fine because.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
You're curious as to how they can handle it.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yeah. Yeah, and you see them the tough boys on
the field, and yeah, the toughness really comes out in
the boxing room.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Yeah, what's funny you should say. And he's got a
massive engine on gallon. Yeah, like incredible engine and he
has had a lot more I think he's a lot
more profiles than Sonny. You're a lot tougher profiles. I
mean he, I mean they both thought Mark Cahn't Mark
was sort of obviously at the end of his career,
but way in fact probably pass the end of his career.
But but Gal got hit by a hundred few times
and Gallon didn't didn't go down and made Mark can't hit.
(51:57):
So yeah, he was one hundred and thirty two kilos
a night, and like when he hits Sunny those Sonny
went whoa and that sort of pretty much stopped to fight. So,
I mean, I've talked to Danny Green the other day
and Danny said to me that he thinks Sonny will
win because he's just more athletic and fitter. He's not
saying he's a better fighter than Gal. He's relatively speaking,
you know. He just thinks he's just moves better. And
(52:19):
Gal's probably had a lot of a lot of injuries,
hurt himself a lot, but Gal's pretty confident. He's saying,
I think it's a twos or something like that. But
Gal's saying he's going to just outlast him and he's
got a massive engine on him. And like you said,
that's interesting. There's a conversation straight up, will you go
to those fights in Vegas? So I can't. I think
they're fights in July, too, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yeah, it's the Wednesday and I'm fighting the Sunday right.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Right, Okay, you definitely won't be going, but will you
watch it? But what do you do when you're away
like that? Like you're away, does your wife go with you?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
She comes later on, she stays elsewhere, You don't stay together.
I stayed with my chef. Yeah, meaning we sort of
just try rents a place outside of the strip, and yeah,
we're just going to hang out there, just.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Like in terms of eating and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Eating and just just chilling out from the strip.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Is that? But is that because it is pretty it's
pretty tough. Vegas has sucks the life out of you.
It's so pretty hectic place. It really is. It's like
it's in the middle of the desert. It's like it's dry,
hot hot now, very hot now. And but the electricity
(53:35):
in the joint, I don't know what it is. It's
a lot. It's something about it. We are quite quick
if you're not careful, if you don't how to manage it.
And that's maybe what Volk was saying, just getther it
a couple of weeks instead of you said you stayed
there for a long periods of time. Too long, too long.
It's not it's I mean, it's a great place for
an event. It's a great place to go watch event.
(53:56):
I was at the Rugby League this year and it
was there last year. It's great for that. It's not
a place you want to hang out for a very
long time. So where to from here? Tim? So you've
got three weeks, three weeks before the fight for the night.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
So I'll go there two weeks, two and a half weeks, Yeah,
before the fight, a couple of days, just relax, climatize,
another week of training.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Do you spa when you're there?
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Maybe one spa? We'll see how it goes. I'm feeling
is that a hard spa or is it just a
So I'm finishing all my hard spa here in Australia.
That was the whole purpose. Finish it all here and
then go there when I'm already nice and prepped. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
And so you're trying to sort of build back up,
so to speak. You know you're not not to you know,
you're not too trying to thrash myself.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Yeah, yeah, trying to stay sharp.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
You're right, So fitness, your fitness should be peaking in
a week. It's pretty good now, and you want to
keep it there. You want to keep it out a level.
Are you someone who loses the fitness quickly or you
can maintain easily? Yeah, that's pretty cool. And will you run? Yeah,
you continue to run.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, I'll do a bit of running. Yeah. I just
enjoy running. That's one of my things. I can put
my earphones in and just casually just recovery. Top thing
for me. Yeah, not to kill myself or anything.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
You mentioned scientific. More scientific is the weight in waight? Yeah?
But is that about knowing? So for example, getting a
dex a scan, seeing where your weight's carried and then
doing proper calculations, making assumptions. Do you do a metabolic rate?
All of that stuff, how many calories you burn at rest?
(55:35):
And then you start to add assumptions on and then
not just and I'm working.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
On calories to eat in a week, how many calories
to each daily?
Speaker 1 (55:44):
And does who does that for your chef? Where you've
got a chef and.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
I've got my strength coach is also dieticians, so he
helps me, helps us out with all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
So you go through the whole process. So when you finish,
when you have when you have your fight and you win,
and I've seen you post stuff on on on Instagram
doing this. Do you go out and have a big
meal after? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Yeah, there's a place in Vegas we always go. I
used to go every weekend. It's called Italy. It's got
the best paninis in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
There's bread, the bread, and yeah that's that because all
of a sudden, it's a big reward because you haven't
had that for twelve weeks.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
Yeah, yeah, that'd be right. You usually go to this
one restaurant every weekend. I've been missing out on pizza
every weekend, so right now because you like your pizza,
I love my pizza. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
So, in other words, you don't live this weird strict
life which most people probably think this. This guy's like
so highly just wanted you know, he never overreach. Maybe
you don't over do you. Do you drink? No, you
don't drink any alcohol, not just when you're preparing, but
at any time. You've never had really had alcohol.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
No, it's never been my thing.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
You don't care about it.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
At my wedding I did, of course. Yeah yeah yeah yeah,
but not not not since my boxing career start. Really yeah,
now you live.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
Forever good your organisms seriously, Like that's that's pretty rare
for someone who's thirty years of age today, you know,
like not many people would, even even fighters, like I mean,
I member, Jeff, he used to drink like outside of training.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Yeah, my dad, My dad used to drink. Yeah, it's
never never really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
So you don't have a voda or something like that.
Do you speak Russian? Good?
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Well?
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, like fluent, fluent, And that's my obviously is you
know what.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
We went to live in Moscow in two thousand and
nine and eight, so I learned how to speak and read, write,
interact with everyone there when when I lived in Russia.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Wow, So and you continue to practice, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:55):
I just just learned and was able to. Like I
always knew how to talk Russian, always new, but reading
and writing and all that stuff was a bit harder.
Of course, we went to Russian school once a week
when we were young. But still yeah, here in Australia.
But when when you moved to Moscow and you you
get taken to a local school, not an international school,
(58:15):
but a local school. To be Russian, you have to
speak Russian, you got to read and write. So yeah,
I learned how to do it there and remains with
me now.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
Did your brother speak Russian?
Speaker 2 (58:27):
Mikita speaks Russian. Yes, I'm not sure. If you can
read and write, he would have been much younger. Yeah,
he was much younger, same as my sister. Yeah, I'm
sure that if they can read and write, but they
can they can speak.
Speaker 1 (58:38):
Would So would you speak Russian to your mum now?
Speaker 2 (58:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Well like yeah, yeah, you ring up and say something
in Russian?
Speaker 2 (58:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (58:45):
Just is it just for the purpose of intimacy with
your mum? Or is it no, you're just more practice.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
It's weird. It's just like your sort if you speak
another language, it feels a bit weird really. Yeah. Yeah,
like yeah, if I speak English with my mom and
be like, she'd be like, we are you talking to
me in English? For? You know, like she speaks to
me in English? Like we're talking to me in English
for We've always grown up just talking Russian. That's how
(59:12):
my other language to each other.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
Yeah, And as my dad, same as my dad. Whenever
we speak, I'll always been Russian.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
That sort of makes sense because your dad's living in Russia.
But what about your grandfather?
Speaker 2 (59:22):
Yeah that's Russian, is it? Yeah? He's got no English
at all.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Oh, really.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yeah, you'd think like after thirty years that you pick
up a little bit, but no, he chooses. He's a
big chooser. Like he chooses a lot of things, yeah,
to not do.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Yeah, but he gets by it works.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yeah, of course he goes from his house to the
gym and back. That's really, that's all he needs to go.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
It's funny, like to the supermarket. He just reminded me
of you know, I might before my father passed away
last year, I was together, we sat day and when
I was gather ice just try my hardest to speak
as much Greek to him as possible because it wasn't well.
And yeah, it's it's actually a pretty special moment when
he speak to your parents in there. In his case,
it was more a dialectic dialect of Greek from where
(01:00:10):
he came from. And I wouldn't do so well in Athens,
but does well in his village. And but it's it's
when I thought about after he passed away, how important
that was to him and to me too actually, to
be honestly, it's one of the things I hold on
to and that's pretty important.
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Mate.
Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Don't ever let that one go because your mum's still young,
but like not that anybody's sort of going to pass away.
But how old you know, your dad's like close to
seventy when he's sixty five sixty, he's sixty something sixty,
Jeff fifty's I think he's better old th Jeff. And
he was born okay, so he's not even sixty yet.
(01:00:46):
He's a bit younger than a fank just turned sixty. Yeah,
so there you go. But that sort of stuff made
is really important to you and to your parents, your grandfather.
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Future brother, future brother and sister. Back in the Russian ones,
the young ones, they're only going to talk Russian. Yeah,
they're not going to talk much.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Do you speak to that much? No, I don't, but
they will be curious, of course. My brother is, Yeah,
of course, of course, my two brothers.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
We hope that we can visit Russia like one day soon,
sooner rather than.
Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
How old are they?
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Good question one? Just probably in year one and then
maybe in year three.
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Yeah, like the only little.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah like that seven.
Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
I wonder if they watch you fight.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I'm sure they would. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure my
dad's put it on.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Of course you will, and I'm sure you well like
like you can imagine them in Russia in Moscows. There's
my brother. That's my brother. They won't really sort of
have nightmares about her. If you're losing, they won't be
elated if you win. I mean they won't neither way,
but still they will be thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
That's my Yeah, that's pretty cool. Cool.
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I can't imagine being told that as a kid, that
there's your brother there. But there's your brother there, and
he's fighting in them gyms in Las Vegas for the
world title. Just one there he is doing that. That's
something to fight for.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yeah, of course, of course. And I think it's a
big probably a big trip out for my dad to
even be able to comprehend the fact that I'm fighting
at MGM, you know, like his son is fighting on
the stage where he fought his whole career.
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Yeah, that's that's pretty amazing. So I just want to
go back finally to the twenties that's coming up. What
are we going to see?
Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Mate? Just a real strategic strategic fight for me, with
a bit of blood and guts and war.
Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
You ready to go to war?
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
I've been through Helen back, you know, you know, I
know what it is and and you're comfortable with it. Yeah,
I'm not afraid of that. My biggest fear in life
was losing, and once you go past it just shows
how insignificant it really is, you know. So right now
everything's just a victory.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
And if if he wants war, you're going to bring it.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
I'm gonna bring it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
And if it wants nuclear, you give him nuclear, of course.
But otherwise he'll end up having to fight. You'll fight.
Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Yeah, it doesn't know what he's in for.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
So good
Hi, I Boris and this is straight talk Tim and
young mate. Good haven't it for ages? Actually I saw
in March this year before the last one. Yeah, quick
quick had a quick interview then and we spoke earlier,
you know we and that was your obviously your first
fight coming off the previous twenty twenty four which wasn't
a great year for you, but you obviously brought yourself
(00:20):
back to where you want to be. Soon next month
you're going to be in the biggest boxing event of
the year with two world title fights on one card.
That's pretty amazing, pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Just announced the interim title as well for the other boys.
Three three times.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Wow, that's cool. And this of course is for our listeners.
This fight will be available to watching start of the
twentye to July exclusively on main event via KO Sports subscription.
Now there's no subscription required to purchase the pay for
you and go for it. I'll be watching it. Unfortunately,
won't be able to go over that MGM to watch Tim.
(00:58):
I've always wanted Actually, that's one of the state I've
always wanted to be to go to, Like that's some
of the most famous fights in our history fought there
pretty amazing. Are you excited about this? Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, Like dreams are made up from from these moments,
you know. So I'm fighting on the on the top
of the world stage. In they say that the modern
day are what are they called the Colisseum.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
There is a Colisseum. It's a big moment and people
have been fighting there for a long time, like there's
been some extraordinarily famous fights there. But then again, you're
sitting here in our studio and you've probably just come
in from Rockdale? Is that where you're still training?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So like it's quite interesting. You can come from something
very simple and humble like Rockdale where you train, and
I guess you've got the same training team that you've
always had. I don't mean you're spiring partners, but I
mean you're coaches, including family members. You're still probably manage
boy Gland and so nothing's really changed. You go from
(01:56):
something really quite humble, then the next thing on the
world stage. How do you manage that crap like that
must be that must I don't know that Does it
funk with your head a little bit? Or do you
just you just manage it?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
At first, at first, it was sort of like a
little bit of a shock, I guess. But the longer
you're you're sort of in that in the position you
you sort of embrace it now and it's not as
much of a shock anymore. I just enjoy That's It's
honestly what I live for now, just those those thrills,
those moments to be at that very top.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It is that because you you're seeking the adrenaline rush
or you you want to put yourself back to where
you were.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
No, I just it's it always reminds me of being
a young kid. You know, like as a young kid
I was, I was dreaming about these moments. I used
to like, I used to get a little soccer born.
I used to punch it in the pool boy myself
and I was very very young, and at the same
time I used to announce myself and think I was
coming into MGM grand you know. So so now I'm
(02:59):
actually living a childhood dream of mine and just have
to enjoy the process.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
How are you feeling, like physically, no sort of injuries
or you know, physically good touch wood, Yeah, you're good.
It's only like what three weeks away, really, it's just
a little over three weeks just around the corner. Let's
just take me where take me to where you would
be right now. So you've got to make a certain weight,
(03:28):
et cetera. You don't really have that much trouble with
weight your relative to other people. It's probably a better
way putting it. But how you where are you? You're
on course in terms of weight management? Do you feel strong?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I feel I feel like I'm in a different, different
phase right now. You know, Like my weight's been better
than usual. Usually it's a bit higher, so now it's
it's a bit lower, which is good.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
When do you put that down to discipline?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Discipline? Sometimes you have those mid midweeks and you eat
a bit more than you should, more and more about
like scientific base for me, you know. So it's been
really really strict by the by the core. So everything
is everything's going according to plan.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And does it have anything to do with your home life,
your family life person?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I'd say my last my last fight, I had a
bit of problem cutting weight, and I came out and said,
you know what I had. I had a bit of
an issue and it was hard, but I did come
come back from my wedding. I was I had to
put on a bit away from them, so it was
a bit harder to cut. But this time it's it's
really been very, very disciplined from from the very get go.
(04:43):
So everything's going down slowly and home life is just
everything's just comfortable as well. Everything just makes sense.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
And how long will you spending? It was obviously you're
going to winning and leave you and leave soon to
go to the US.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, I'll be Friday the fourth, so two.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Weeks, right, And what's the acclimation like the acclimatization process. Yeah,
once you get there, what do you do? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well I originally went for the presser press conference, and
it took me roughly two days to adapt. I was
going to go a bit earlier to Vegas, but I
decided to take it two weeks before. I think that's
plenty of time. I actually spoke to Alex Okanowski. He
told me about his experiences. He's been doing it a lot,
(05:28):
flying into America, so I sort of went by his
word and how he's experienced it and sort of just
guided my own way because I used to go two months,
three months before the fight. It's a long time to
spend away from home as well. You're living in a
house full of men. It's a whole different environment. You're
away from home, it's different feelings. So for me having
(05:52):
that comfort at home, being able to come to Vegas
full fight night and for the way cut and just
getting in and out, well, my dad used to do
what Volkowski does. That's what I am doing for this fight.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
That's interesting you spoke to Volk you know, like he's
in the UFC sense MMA. He would go down as
definitely as one of the greatest in MMA and probably
or definitely one of Australia's greatest UFCMMA fighters of all time.
And he made a good comeback, he got his belt back.
(06:27):
I think, do you ever think to yourself how much
Australians loved Tim Zoo and love Alex Volkanovski and they
really are hanging out for you to do exactly the
same again, do you get a.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Cent Yeah, get that sense. I think we both embraced
the Aussie culture and for guys to just you know,
have a crack at it. So I think that's what
we represent.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
But it's I mean, we're obviously gie advertisers, a brilliant
cruise ofweight, but he doesn't seem to get the same
sort of attention as you and Volk and I don't
know why, but nonetheless you that is the position you
both are in. On one hand, it's pressure, but on
the other hand, it's pretty cool to be held up.
(07:09):
You sort of like a bit of a hero cold hero.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a it's it's a big responsibility,
you know, a big responsibility. But it gives me a
lot of pleasure in life to be able to have
people that you can rely on and that you can
that you're you're relying to as well and represent And
it's a great feeling.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Because you know, I interviewed lots of people, and funnily enough,
I'm very rarely doing it on a Friday. And when
the boys said they could we could you could fit
us in on for a Friday, I was all off
because you know, I mean, you're a kid compared to me,
and you know, I remember watching your dad and I
even get excited about getting the oportunity to do an
(07:51):
interview because you you are iconic, and not not just
you've become you've changed. I mean my sense and Almos
spoke to a mar Much is that you'll become more
relaxed and more chilled and you're sort of seem to
be at peace with yourself and maybe probably more importantly,
maybe a lot of us are worried about how's he
(08:12):
going to respond or come back from last year, And
you seem to be so sordid organized in your own mind.
And I can see it in your eyes. And I
often say this about fighters, like I can sort of
basically tell how somebody is going to go. It sounds stupid,
but like just from their eyes, your eyes look really relaxed.
(08:33):
You've still got that sort of murderous look in your
face too, by the way, scary look, but you do
look chilled. Yeah, I'm feeling.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Definitely more more comfortable, more comfortable in yourself. Yeah, just
being in the position that I'm just I think I
think a lot of gratitude, a lot of gratitude right now,
and yeah, just feeling comfortable from it.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Fondora's by the way, I'm bit confused is because I
thought you might be fighting Thurman. I wasn't sure so
because he called you out after Rock and you know,
you had Joey Spencer, Like I sort of thought they're
both warm up fights, but you know, we have to
respect the other fight. Of course, great but they were
both warmup fights, and then Spencer. Then Furma called you
(09:19):
out after Brock and I thought, that's the setup. They've
set me up here for sure, and and I thought
you'd be fighting him this year. Later this year, we're
around about now. How is it that Fondora dropped in
like it was or was Thurman never really on?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
No, Thurman was on, Urman was on. I think that's
where it was going to collide. But I had this
feeling after the fight. As soon as the Joey Spencer
fight finished, I had this feeling that, you know, I
have to I have to go back to that chapter
one last time, and I have to take advantage of
(09:59):
what I got in front of me and create a
new chapter in my story.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
You're you're and I've spoken to your your team in
the past, particularly in March this year, and you're not
one to shy away from the tough fights, irrespective of
what they say or do. I mean, because people keep
talking about, you know, why didn't Tims, why did his
team stop the fight? You know, after whatever around it
has to be for you to hold your title, and
(10:24):
I think it's round four or something like that, and
then they all I've been told by many people that
Tim's side of dude, you're sort of a man on
your own, like you make your own calls. No one's
telling you what to do, so it.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Would be a problem as well.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well then you're then, but you're very confident in yourself.
So preparing to fight someone like Fundor again, who's a
he's got like ten inch reach on you. You know,
he's a giant in terms of height. He's a left hander.
He pinches nice and straight. So you know, your pressure
style of fighting might have to change a little bit.
(11:04):
What do you do to prep for this? Now, no one,
you've already been through one route. I forget about their
clash of the moment, but you've already been through that.
You know you've been you know, swapping punches, you know
how he fights. You build a different strategy.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I think we with this camp, we've actually had to
create a strategy. Last time, it was a week's notice
that we had. Yeah, I sort of just went in there, and.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
So you might explain that to him because you were
supposed to fight somebody else.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, right, supposed to fight Thurman and on two weeks
got two weeks notice, I get the call that Thurman's
out bicyp injury. What do we do? I just spent
ten weeks in Vegas, Big camp, flew everyone in. It
was PBC's first Amazon Prime event. So it was a big,
(11:52):
big spectacle. It was on in the Temboller and it
was it was it was such a big deal and
it was I was living my dream. Of course, So
we have to go find an opponent. First one was
Fundor you know, no, he just came off a loss.
He gets Mendoza and I just beat Mendoza, so he
(12:13):
got into the position straight away to fight for the
world title, unified unifying world titles. So WBC and WBO
and yeah, I had a week's too, one week to
prepare basically, and ideally, it wasn't like a tactical preparation.
It was let's just get in there, find some spiring
(12:36):
partners and just practice on some some little things that
we can work on and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It wasn't well strategized or you didn't have enough time
to do.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It, of course. And you know, like now, when I've
had the ten weeks to prep it's not about what works,
it's about what doesn't work. You know, you cop a
few and you find out what's not working, and that's
that's where the real progress is at. And I didn't
I wasn't able to have that, But this time I do,
and it's a it's a better feeling.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Does it does the southpaor style? Will that change you much?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
There's a little bit technical, a little bit different techniques.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah. But has he got heavy hands?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Who from what I remember, not much.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
No.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, he's got this weird punches. They're like lanky punches. Yeah,
but he does have these sneaky shots that can get you,
and I remember I remember feeling them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
So like because he doesn't seem to go for the
body much because he's probably doo tall anyway, he.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Does actually the body he's got, he's got a few
sneaky shots and he's it's weird. He's got this style,
but he's got this upper cuts.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, I remember the other kid.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
He's got the uppercuts and his body shot and he
basically uses his front hand to find range and then
sometimes uses the backhand to use it inside range.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Because I noticed in the fight against Joe Spencer in
the first round, he came out different to Tim Zuo.
In the past. You were very I don't want to
use word careful because that's probably underselling it. But you
were very purposeful. You look like, hang on, I'm not
rushing this. I'm not going to put pressure on him.
I'm just going to see what he's got. That's different
(14:17):
to what I've normally seen you. You normally you're pretty confident.
You get out there and you take control straight away,
will you sort of fill it out? A little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Hard to fill out because he goes straight away for
the for the punches, he creates the volume, so you
sort of have to He.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Does have a lot of volume.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That's his biggest key. He's got volume. He's always throwing
punches and he's always at a distance to land, So
you know you've got to come in different ways to
approach that. It's if you're going to be filling out
for three or four rounds, you're going to be losing
those rounds that you have to win back. So you know,
you sort of have to start strong straight away.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So for someone like him, you're not You've got to
take his space away, but to take the distance away,
which is what he wants. He was distance. If you
tell you this is the way that means you've got
to sort of crowd him a little bit, which means
you've got to walk into him.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
A few, a cop a few to land a few.
But at the same time he's very good on the
inside as well. He lends a few a few of
these sneaky shots. So you want to stay at a
certain range where you're comfortable and he's not comfortable.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
If you had your time again, would you have because
you know, you could have stopped the fight, or your
team could have said to the refree, look, we're not
going to go any further, and the belts would remain
remain with you and it wouldn't look bad because it
was obviously you can't stop the bleeding. It just it's
easy enough to say, listen, if we can't start the bleeding,
(15:48):
which they couldn't, we could see it was blood everywhere.
If you had your time again from a just from
a business point of view, being the world title holder,
would you have changed the way you handled the cut?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
No? No, Just for the fact that I was able
to show who I am for the whole world to
see character. Yeah, yeah, and that's worth more for me.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
That's interesting. So it's because there's always seemed to me
to be important for tim Zu to show the world
who he is, not just the son of Courses. But
I'm Timsu. And you often used to say that when
you used to win your fights. I'm Timsu. But it's
how Why is it so important? Do you think for
(16:43):
a young man like you, who grew up with a
father like you did, to establish his own position in
the world, In the world You're not talking about down
at Rochdale, You're talking about in the world.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, I think it's I think identity. You want to
be able to your own brand, create your own what
you are, who you are and what you what you value,
and what you what you're on about. Because my dad's
a whole different character. He's me and him a complete opposite,
you know, So what people think about my dad is
(17:16):
completely different to what people should be thinking about me.
So that's why I really wanted to create the Timsus
story and not and not anyone else.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And do you think you've done that at this point.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
To a certain extent. I still think there's there's a
lot more to go, a lot more to prove, a
lot more to work on. But I think we're on
a good road.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Is that one of your big drivers in life. Two
to continue on that road.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I had actually a little think about it. I think,
what's my biggest My biggest role model would probably be
my dad, but he's also my biggest competition at the
same time, you know, no disrespect like that, without any disrespect,
you know. Yeah, I'm able to surpass him. Then we've
(18:04):
sort of created something for our legacy, for the Zoo
last name to live on forever, you know. So I
think that's that's the driving factor for me.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Do you discuss that with your dad? It's not something
that's you know, hey, Dad don't want to talk to
about this, or or he said hey mate, he probably
says in Russian these days, but let's talk about this. No, No,
he was that old. Is your dad old school in
that regard in terms of our father son?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, now, no, No, my dad's in all honesty, I
don't I don't really talk to him much. We don't
really have much interaction.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Day to day as in just yeah, just in general.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I can't of remember the last time I spoke to him,
in all honesty. But he's there. He's there, but he's
at the same time, he's not always there and doing
his thing. He's just doing his thing. He's sort of
just living really low key. I don't know if it's
if it's just the way he wants to do it,
but yeah, I just I just respect it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I guess maybe from his point of view living in
the limelight forever and then going back to Russia like
you want to Rush's greatest athletes, it'd probably been even
worse in that regard. Does he live Moscow? Where does
he live?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Moscow, So like that's probably pretty foreign and expectations. He
probably just wants to.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Oh, my dad's gone from from here to just completely
mellow down. And he's got two little kids now, so
he's sort of enjoying the moment of raising them because
he wasn't able to really do it with us. I
think that's his main priority in life now. And he
stays away from boxing, he stays away from really a
lot of things.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, it's funny, you should say, because in the costure,
if you're listening to this, I actually understand that process
as a father in my case, because I was too
interested in business and not having time with my own kids,
and I didn't really spend that much time my kids.
I've got grandkids now, so I'm a much different grandfather
(20:12):
to what I was as a father. In fact, I'm
probably better grandfather than I was a father, and better
to my kids as well. But sometimes, you know, you
just made me think when you said that about cost,
it made me think to myself, maybe I should reach
out to my own sons, because we as parents don't
know the effect we have on our kids. And we
don't mean to have a bad effect, but you can
(20:34):
have a not a bad effect, but you can have
an effect, and as a result of that, that sort
of starts to form how they live their lives. And
I guess it's important because I'm old school, and you know,
my generation did give me. You didn't give kids a hug.
You can't make it up. Let's go footy, let's go
to school, eat your breakfast, doing home work. I'll see
(20:56):
in a week.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
My mom was like that. I think my mom was
an old school but my dad a little bit. He
was a bit more softer, was he? Yeah, growing up
he was a bit softer.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Wow, he's a big soft And you do you think
you'd I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I don't know. I don't know what I'll be. I
think I think I've got more of the probably a
more a bit of a cold cold. I'm not that soft.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
You're not soft. No, video always don't have kids this, no, no,
But how's that going in relation to you? You're married
or your partner? Yeah? And what are you talking about there?
What are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
What's the about kids? Oh? One day, God willing.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
You've got things to do, you got stuff to do.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
It's funny, I've just been boxing has just been my
sole focus. I've been like married to the game for
for such a long time. It's just hasn't They never
really used to be in my mind, you know, even
marriage and taking that next step. It's always been just boxing, boxing,
all right? When's the next fight? Or wins the next fight?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
All right?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
When we're on next what are we doing? It's just
it's always been about goals, chasing goals, and that's just
how it's been.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
How old are you now?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Just turned thirty?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah? So, and what's your wife's name?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Alexandra?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Alexandra? What nationalities? Alexandra?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
She's Macedonia.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
But okay, so Alexandra in terms of culture, she probably
wants have a family. So she ran your same same
age group. So do you feel as though over the
next few years there could be another Zoo run around
the joint.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, I'm sure there would be. Sure.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I mean it's because you know you're you were running.
We're definitely running around during your dad's period of being
a world title holder. Yeah, I mean I've seen I've
seen so many photographs and you on the stage standing
there with him, like and by the way, you look
exactly like him. But clearly you've got a bit of
your mother in you as well. You're better looking the
don't tell him, I'm telling him, but like your your future.
(23:07):
You know. Australians because I'm thinking this is very romantic.
I don't mean romantic and it loves it. I mean romanticizing.
But Australians would love to see a Tim Zuo with
Alexandra and his child standing there with a belt like
That's like that would make us so happy in Australia
and it sounds ridiculous on a national level. We think
(23:29):
those things are important. They really are, Tim like, they
are so important. I mean when Volt got his belt back, like,
Australia was so happy. Helps it. His good bloke, a
good person, a good Australian, respects his background but a
good Australian works hard trains hard accepted his defeat, went
back and start all over again and clawed it back.
(23:52):
And I think and when you see him in how
he's very much a family man. When you see him
and you see Tim, so I think there is a
to me, there's a massive connection between the two. And
you know we need we you know, unfortunately, we need
heroes in our world. For you, who's your hero? Yeah,
(24:18):
good question? Or you just or you're the person who's
destined to be the hero and you therefore don't have one.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
I don't know. Actually I'm not sure. I'm not sure
who my hero, who my hero is? Who I look
up to? I guess in all honesty, Volk is a big,
big inspiration. Do you talk to me much here and there?
Which sometimes shout through through social media and stuff?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But have you met up yet?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yes, of course, But but yeah, someone in terms of
how I'm living, there's there's not many people in that
top of industry i'd say that I look up to
except for Volk.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
That's interesting, and he lives in Volk's lives all about fundamentals, cooking, family, loves,
going to the farms. Obviously, he loves his gym, he's
fight Jim, he's and he loves his craft. Do you
love your craft?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Boxing?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I think I'm obsessed with it, you know. I think
it's just always always on, It's always on the mind,
and from a very young age, it's always it's always
been there.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
So you're on the card with Pakia. What about someone
like him? Is he someone?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
What is he?
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Forty five six?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, he's not.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
For history's pretty amazing. I don't know how many divisions
he's gone through seven six or seven something like that
and still there.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, still fine for yeah, crazy, Well you know what,
like used to think, Oh wow, it's going to be
so crazy, like Manipak and the car blah blah blah
all that. Now it's like it's it's it's where you
feel most at home, you know, this is this is
where you belong.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
You meant him at the Bressa Yeah, yeah, yeah, fanboy
or fan boy a little bit yea, yeah, yeah, did
a little bit. Yeah, you know I had sparring with him,
really yeah, I had sparring with him in twenty nineteen
in the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Philippines, Yeah, I was. I was there for two weeks
in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I got invited and be apart partner for him.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Partner, Yeah, which was pretty cool. That was the first
time I met him.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And what period was that again, that's nineteen that's uh,
that's only five six years ago. When did you find yeah,
Winni fourth Thurmon. That wasn't the horn period? No, right, Yeah.
What was it like to spa Minipac?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, it was It was interesting, It was cool. It
was I could see how busy he was there, how
he's loved by so many people, how many people rely
on him. It was insane. There was a job for everything,
you know, there was a there was some guy that
used to have a town used to just like get
(27:14):
rid of the flies while he was doing set up.
I was like, sounds like a pretty good job.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
He's a pretty cool guy, like you know, to me,
he's one of the outstanding or standouts in the boxing world.
He's always maintained his integrity. He's given a lot back
to people in his country. He's like adored probably globally
he's adored. And he's actually become a politician, as you know.
And one days there he was thinking about and becoming
(27:40):
the president of the Philippines.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I think he just he just ran for him.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Something happened.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What happened?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I get there, But like, would Tim Zoho ever think
about doing something not politician, because he's giving back in
a big way. I mean, and he's obviously earned a
lot of money, like a lot of money a long
period of time, and he's probably in his country he'd
be extraordinarily wealthy. And therefore what you say is he
(28:09):
looks after people. And that sort of takes it back
to what you're talking about before. That's gratitude, that's and
the best way to show gratitude is give back, pay forward,
whether it's money or time effort. Do you sometimes ever
get the sense that, look, I wouldn't I go and
traveling to a hospital and checking in kids and do
(28:32):
you do that sort of stuff?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
I haven't done it, but it's it's definitely been the
it's definitely been in the in the process of organizing
something like.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
That on the radar, so to speak, because.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
We've been wanting to do homeless really feeding the homeless.
I think it's it's a sad scenario here in Australia. Yeah,
around the world actually, and yeah, I think it's a
biggin act if you.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Well, I'm not going to say if you, I'm backing
you to win the fight and I actually think that
you will wear the guy down and an out smart
amount strategy. Josh, I've seen your your fight smarts. They're
pretty good. You can prepare all the strategies, like you
have your tactics and all that sort of stuff prepared.
(29:23):
But how much different is it once you're in the rink.
You know, you can have a strategy and you can
have all your tax all your train You might train
with a six foot five left hander for the last
whatever a period of time. Isn't all of a sudden
you guess, hang on, it's not working ring smarts? Can
you talk to me about ring smarts? You know, like
what does Tim Zu do when he feels something? And
(29:46):
how how how hard is it to adjust make adjustments?
Taking away from when you're injured, I want to talking
about that, but just where you're going to get a
surprise about something, anything that's not working anymore, or they're
doing something to have to defend. How do you a
about it?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I think you have to find your base what works
at all times. If it's using your legs, if it's
just a little reset, you know. And in a fight,
there's there's always going to be scenarios at work, there's
always going to be scenarios that don't work. But there's
also got to be a neutral ground where you're where
(30:21):
you're just feeling sweet, just feeling yourself. Yeah, if it's
moving around, if it's throwing quick jabs, if it's throwing
speed or whatever it is, you just got to find
that base and be able to be switched on the
whole time, you know. And it's easy, easier said than done,
of course, But all we have to do is concentrate
(30:43):
for thirty six minutes.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, it sounds easy, it's a long.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Time, a long time. You can't not concentrate for tens
for two seconds or it's going to get clipped. So
it's just the concentration at all times. And I think
during training you sort of feel when you lose concentration.
There's times where you throw a shot, you get a
bit tired, you're like a shit, you look left, you
(31:10):
look right, and bomb you get coped with another shot.
You know, your mind has to be non stop the
whole time in the game.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So I've always saw you as a bit of a
surgeon when you're fight, because you just tend to break
guys down pretty quickly in the first couple of rounds
and then you go after him that process of did
you just explain when you get tired, so when fatigue
sets in, maybe you could explain why it's so much
harder to make decisions when there's fatigue. I mean, we
(31:42):
see in ragul league all the time. We see really
good rugby league players who get fatigued to make wrong
decisions in terms of tackling, and you know they put
their head the wrong spot, they're out. And your favorite team,
the Rabbits, you have your back rower, your captain, he
does it a lot and wonderful player. Yeah, smart at hell,
knows technique, but all of a sudden he gets fatigued
(32:04):
and something happens because it does a lot of work,
you know. And Radley is the same with the Roosters.
He does the same thing. He gets fatigued. What do
you do when you start to feel for tea coming on?
Do you sort of can you use your ring craft
and just stay.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I think the biggest the biggest experience you learn from
from getting better in an experience in the ring is
being able to hide when you rest, being able to
hide when you're taking breaths, putting it, putting it all on,
sort of showing the showing the difference, you know, like
(32:37):
you can't bring a relentless style that's throwing four hundred,
five hundred punches each round and doing it over the
course of twelve rounds. You know, it's just humanly impossible.
As much as you train, it's going to burn you out,
you know. So it's just being able to find the race.
And I remember Floyd maybe he used to do it
when he was in the clinch. He used to take
a couple of deep breaths and used to be frustraight away. Know,
(33:00):
it's just about the recovery.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, I mean someone who was sort of probably the
closest that I've ever seen who could throw hundreds of
punches around it. It was finic, like probably the fittest
fighter ever though, but also crazy. Jeff Well, yeah, you
have to be sort of crazy to be out. You
have to have a sort of a crazy mind to
be like that. And he's like that and everything he does.
(33:23):
If he's sitting here now, he'd be he's punches, but
he'd be sort of interacting. You know, that's how he is.
But not many people can do that. And there's a
there's a skill that I've watched you do, Like I
don't know when you're doing, but I know you you
managed to recover. But it's they call it ringcraft, but
like you're able to you're not necessarily backing off, but
you're able to give yourself opportunity to sort of reset.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, So what's my My thing is when I'm in
front of someone, a lot of the time, they're under
the pressure, they're under the pump, and there's nothing coming
out of me, Like I'm standing there just making them tremble,
and that burns a lot of energy and from their
point of view, from their point of view, but from
(34:07):
my point of view, there's zero energy being wasted at all.
And I think that's probably one of my greatest skills
I have in boxing.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
And it's probably pretty important as you're mature as a fighter,
is to understand your strengths. Probably also your weaknesses too,
but like it's really important to know what your strengths
are and to focus on those things. I mean, it
is a pretty big strength of yours because I mean,
you tend to you go the whole. You can go
the distance, and you can look pretty fresh towards the
(34:36):
end because and if they're starting to get a little
bit tie the legs, of course, that's when you come
in hard, You come in and take over. So I
mean often, you mean here, i'd say stupid things they go,
you know, I'll knock him out in the fifth round
as all that sort of stuff. But you know that
you're going to have to go the distance with this
bloke because he's quite good. Course, you know, he's obviously
(34:59):
correct me so, but he's he's no bushover and and
but my gut feeling is that I'm feeling as this
is going to go the distance. And I mean last
time went the distance, and you know it was, you know,
a split decision, notwithstanding all your injuries. You must that
must actually give you confidence. Yeah, you know, you go
(35:20):
to the distance with him, Yeah, of course, and you
know you can copy punches.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I was saying before, he should have killed me the
first time, you know, like with all the disadvantages, Yeah,
he should he should have really should.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Have cleaned up earlyamp his mark. Yeah, you totally totally
if you win this fight, and I'm sure you're going
to win it. If you win this one, what's going
through your head? Are you thinking? Well? Who do I
fight next?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Is the problem? It's always there's there's.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
The next We should you not think about it?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
I shouldn't be thinking about it, But you do, like
to a certain extent, Yeah, a certain extent.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Probably not right now anyway, definitely not now, but like
you dream about it.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Of course you envision stuff. And the thing with boxing
it sound predictable. You know, you don't know what's going
to happen, or what's around the corner, or what opportunities come.
It's it's it's crazy. Would you consider someone like Charlo Charlo? Yeah,
I mean he'd have to drop it back to the divisions.
(36:16):
He's one above you, isn't he. No, he's still in
the same divisions. So that's one sort of unfinished business. Yeah,
we were. I was in Vegas and we walked past
each other. Really, he's he was walking like he was
walking to his tape to his seat, and I didn't
notice him. And then I sort of noticed him, and
I see him he's not looking and I sort of
(36:37):
just like got ready. I was like, I don't know
what's going to happen. But he's got his boys and
by myself with with with my manager. And then he
says hi to my manager and I was like, oh,
fair enough. And he looks at me and I was
like and he goes, congratulations what and he goes for
getting married and I was like, oh, thanks. He just
kept walking.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I was like, oh sweet, he's obviously following you on
social media.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
It must have been.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Because it's I don't know, what's you know, like your
second fight last year, last year in twenty twenty four,
the name I always Mataro Liev. Would you consider him again? Yeah,
he's the IBF champion.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I would wouldn't do the rehydration clause, but no, tell
me through that reigation clause. So the day of the flight,
you have to weigh ten pounds. That's it, no more,
no more, yep.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So so I'm not Maybe I will say it. It's
he obviously cut the hell out of his weight, but
it must have rehiderated pretty hard. I'm sure because you
look much bigger.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I heard plenty of stories, but
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
So, so he made the weight in the morning, Yeah,
And I made the weight in the morning. As well,
So it's two two ways, but usually i'd put on
much more Tom, I wasn't able to.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
What do you have any thoughts on that? Scientific thoughts.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's the IBF and he caught me with the first punch,
and I think that's what that's all it was. I
had concussion straight away.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah. Did you get the you buzzed brain, headache, everything, everything?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, and then that's hard after that.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
And then I was just standing up like a zombie.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah. Yeah, So your whole neurological system sort of closes down,
your nervous system, so yeah, your brain does.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Not all constrained that nothing works everything.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
And I was surprised you so because I saw the hit.
It well you know it looked like it heard like
not physically didn't hurt, no hit, but like its inside
your brain, that's what it was. Yeah. And what do
you do when you go when you go back and
you talk to your corner and I mean, what do
you say, like do they ask you how you feel
a mate like to come in? What? What what's the
(39:02):
process during during that round?
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I don't know what was happening.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
You don't remember anything? Wow, No, it's just on instinct.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, I was in my head. I was like, you
want to get me out of here, You're gonna have
to kill me. Keep walking forward.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I remember when I interviewed you many years ago with Volk,
there was you, Vulcan, Brock and Gambosis. None of you
were world chambers at that stage. And one of the things,
this is maybe six seven years ago, I remember seeing
you fight down the Croatian Club. Might have been your
first profile. Was that your first profile was at the
(39:44):
Amateurs no themages there there. I remember maybe eighteen kid
and I remember seeing it and I went with Jeff
and I remember we're watching it. We're watching Balal Hackaway
and I remember and I think you must have been
on the same You might have been a pro am night.
You might have been yeah, yeah, And I looked at
(40:05):
you and made you had that sterely look in your eyes.
And then we interviewed you back on the My Mental
Show many years ago. I thought to myself, this kid's
a killer like you had none of this, none of that.
You were the business serious and you had that sort
of thought. My god, it's scary looking dude like this
(40:25):
kid you can do anything. And I did predict it
would be the world champion, and you did become obviously
became the world champion. Is there was in those days,
the younger days? Was that more Tim's front? Was that
Tim the younger blow?
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah? I was just young, hungry and determined, and no
one else existed besides besides me and my career and
the trophy and the accolades. That's all that mattered. And
it's still like that to some extent.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Yeah, it's funny how we grow up, but we actually
don't have the same perhaps the same ambition, the same ambition.
It's you have ambitioned, but it's not the same ambition,
not the same ambition driver. But you become better at
it because you become a different type of fighter. You
become like it's a it's no longer a game. Now
(41:25):
it's your life. This is my life, this is what
I do, this is what I'm good at. Do you
ever think to yourself, maybe I should become an architect,
or because I think your brothers is an architect, he's
an architect.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's that was
the biggest problem that we had with my mom with
arguments was that even when I started my career and
She's like, oh, you always need something to fall back on,
But I was like, I don't want to have anything
to fall back on. I just want to do this
to one hundred percent and go all in and see
(42:03):
see where we can go from there, you know, And
that's how it's been for me.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Can something like this provide for you and your family
future family for the rest of your life?
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I think so it depends how you want to live,
of course.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, of course. If you Yeah, if you want to
live in a big flashboat, probably probably not. But but
you boxes can get paid a lot of money if
you at that, If you get to the level, you
can get paid a lot of money. And if you
can stay there and keep defending, keep defending, you can
make more than you UFC guys. Ever, Nakida, he's fighting
(42:41):
later this year?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (42:43):
Is Merkuda fighting?
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I'm not sure. I'll be honest with you. Do you does.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Nikita do work as an architect? Where does you just
do the boxing?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I'd say he does a lot for himself. He builds
a lot, like how it builds Wow, just himself can
do it himself. Yeah, just physically just builds stuff. Just
a home. Uh. If you tell him to. He's his goal,
I think is to build a house out of wood
that he's going to pick from trees.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
He cut the trees down.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
He's going to cut the trees down.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
So he's got different ambitions. But yeah, that's how that's
how he's always really been. His mind's very creative.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
And there's a rapha fight. There's there's no announcement of
a rap.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Honestly, like I hear it in the media, but that's
about it.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I saw Zarafa also much and I asked him. I said,
it's the blue going on with him because that was
he had a fight before around that period and way
way you're doing it. But nonetheless he uh, he had
a call to do it. He's always going to do it.
But he said, I actually don't have a blue at him.
(44:03):
How do you feel about him?
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I don't know. I don't have any issues.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Yeah, I just feel the media builds it up a bit.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
The media, of course builds it up, but I think
that's just yeah, like if he was living in a
different error, Zarafa would have wouldn't have many fights. But
he's got these sort of lingering around in his Name's
always talked about in the media because of the zoos. Yeah,
so that's that's about it.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
What do you think about So Dana White's actually promoting
on behalf of Turkey his first fight come out Canella Crawford.
I reckon about Dana White promoting well, but all of
it and they also those two.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, I think it's it's a massive fight. I think
it's a big fight. I think Crawford wins in my opinion.
I think he's going to be a bit too smart.
I think Canalo has dropped down a bit in his
last maybe two three years. But yeah, it's an interesting,
interesting story because Canelo's for a while though, like he
(45:10):
doesn't fight often, but he's a beautiful fighter. He's unbelievable,
one of one of the greats moves.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Canelo's sort of your tough Mexican style, hard ass.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
But you know what, when I when I saw the
Canelo fight week when I was in Vegas last time,
it's unreal. The Canelo brand and what he brings to
the people, the way it goes, the fight and the atmosphere,
the passion of Mexican supporters. It's big, you know, and
(45:45):
Mexican boxing is so big and it's just it's like
a religion there. So I understand the passion that he brings.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
What do you think about Dana White? So Dana and
White actually told me when I interviewed him earlier this
year with the premiere, he told me that he had
been approached by Turkey to take control of the boxing game,
and the whole month later he announced it. And it
(46:16):
seems to me that that movement, apart from the fact
that the fighters get paid a lot of money big dough,
that Daniel actually tried to do for that what he's
done for the UFC. You know, one of the issues
in boxing and has never happened in your case, but
one of the shoes in box has a lot of mismatches,
as you know, and it's not great for boxing sometimes,
(46:40):
you know. I think we saw one this year. I
think with Thurman Brock was just you know, shouldn't happen
for Brock's sake, broxywood kid, you know, and I just
wish it never happened. And whereas what Dana said to
me is that he's going to make sure it's not
like that. It's going to be more like UFC. You're
(47:00):
your inform and his inform. But even playing correct. Do
you think that would be good for boxing?
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Oh? Yeah, I think I know you, I think it
would be good. Yeah, I think it's it's great for
the fans. I think boxing in one organization is a
bit hard.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh, that'll never happen.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, I think it's too big. Yeah, to just move
it to one.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
It's also too political and it's different to the UFC.
But because you want to get on television get part
of paper, you've got to go through UFC. But there's
lots of other owns for boxing. But like but nonetheless
just sort of presenting an even, sort of even tempered
(47:42):
process of all the fighters being fighting against each other
and paying fighters a lot of money. For me, a
fighter should get paid as much as possible because it
could be the last fight through any for any reason.
They could lose it, they could get injured, or whatever
the case may be. You know, they provide incredible entertainment
around the world. Like the amount of money that gets
(48:03):
made on a fight night, and today more so than
ever before. Putting yourself in the ring for ten or
twelve rounds is like not even point one percent of
the population would even consider it. They would just wouldn't
(48:24):
and then all the training are to do and all
the sacrifices you've got to make. You know, in your case,
you know you've just done this. You haven't didn't go
to university, you didn't become a builder, you didn't become
a plumber. You're giving yourself and you don't set yourself
up for future unless you win. It's all or nothing. Yeah,
of course every time. So it should be maximum amount
(48:46):
of money relative to the amount of money that take
overall the fighters should get most of the dough Like actors,
they should get most of the dough. I therefore would
put to you, do you think that this might actually
kick start bigger results for fighters around the world and
all the other in all the other platforms in other words,
boxing is I mean, and all the other platforms. In
(49:06):
other words, all those people that compete with the howdis
or Turkey environment will have to start to match. We'll
try to match the same amount of money that day.
And White's going to offer fighters to fight on his cards.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, I'm not sure how much they'll be offering though.
Everything's based on revenue, you know, like if a certain
fight generates a certain amount, then the fighter is going
to make that much more. A lot of fighters unfortunately
outprice themselves and don't get a gig. Yeah, and a
(49:41):
lot of fighters think they're worth a certain amount, but
they're actually not. At the same time, when a promoter
puts a fight on, it has to financially make sense,
or if they're going to be doing losses all the time,
it just doesn't make it. That won't last exactly.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Well, I just I know you're a sales fan, but
we've got to play fighting a Ruster's player, which is
versus What do you think about that one of them?
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, I like Gal Yeah, Yeah, I like it's pretty tough,
but he's going to be yeah, like like how he thinks. Honestly,
I think it's five years too late.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
For both of them, for both, but we've always wanted
to see it.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Yeah, But honestly, I'm that interested in it.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Is that because you're is that because you know you're
a person, is the top of your craft, but also
your skill based relative to their skill bases, Like you know,
it's like different different planets.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
I enjoy watching rugby players punch on with each other.
I think it's fun. Of course, they're not going to
be crazy pro boxes there is no expectation of that.
But they bring certain punches and like they have some
fun in there. But I just think the the two
boys are a bit old, that's all.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
It is.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Like if Goal when Gal was fighting, I really enjoyed
watching gals fights like him and Justin Hodges, just just
Hodges would knock him down just then go gets up
and knocks him out. It was it was fun, you know,
it's what you want to watch sometimes watching the purest
boxes jab jab jab and move around for twelve rounds.
No one cares. It's not interesting. But sometimes when these
(51:24):
guys have a crack, it's fine because.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
You're curious as to how they can handle it.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Yeah. Yeah, and you see them the tough boys on
the field, and yeah, the toughness really comes out in
the boxing room.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Yeah, what's funny you should say. And he's got a
massive engine on gallon. Yeah, like incredible engine and he
has had a lot more I think he's a lot
more profiles than Sonny. You're a lot tougher profiles. I
mean he, I mean they both thought Mark Cahn't Mark
was sort of obviously at the end of his career,
but way in fact probably pass the end of his career.
But but Gal got hit by a hundred few times
and Gallon didn't didn't go down and made Mark can't hit.
(51:57):
So yeah, he was one hundred and thirty two kilos
a night, and like when he hits Sunny those Sonny
went whoa and that sort of pretty much stopped to fight. So,
I mean, I've talked to Danny Green the other day
and Danny said to me that he thinks Sonny will
win because he's just more athletic and fitter. He's not
saying he's a better fighter than Gal. He's relatively speaking,
you know. He just thinks he's just moves better. And
(52:19):
Gal's probably had a lot of a lot of injuries,
hurt himself a lot, but Gal's pretty confident. He's saying,
I think it's a twos or something like that. But
Gal's saying he's going to just outlast him and he's
got a massive engine on him. And like you said,
that's interesting. There's a conversation straight up, will you go
to those fights in Vegas? So I can't. I think
they're fights in July, too, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yeah, it's the Wednesday and I'm fighting the Sunday right.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
Right, Okay, you definitely won't be going, but will you
watch it? But what do you do when you're away
like that? Like you're away, does your wife go with you?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
She comes later on, she stays elsewhere, You don't stay together.
I stayed with my chef. Yeah, meaning we sort of
just try rents a place outside of the strip, and yeah,
we're just going to hang out there, just.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
Like in terms of eating and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Eating and just just chilling out from the strip.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Is that? But is that because it is pretty it's
pretty tough. Vegas has sucks the life out of you.
It's so pretty hectic place. It really is. It's like
it's in the middle of the desert. It's like it's dry,
hot hot now, very hot now. And but the electricity
(53:35):
in the joint, I don't know what it is. It's
a lot. It's something about it. We are quite quick
if you're not careful, if you don't how to manage it.
And that's maybe what Volk was saying, just getther it
a couple of weeks instead of you said you stayed
there for a long periods of time. Too long, too long.
It's not it's I mean, it's a great place for
an event. It's a great place to go watch event.
(53:56):
I was at the Rugby League this year and it
was there last year. It's great for that. It's not
a place you want to hang out for a very
long time. So where to from here? Tim? So you've
got three weeks, three weeks before the fight for the night.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
So I'll go there two weeks, two and a half weeks, Yeah,
before the fight, a couple of days, just relax, climatize,
another week of training.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Do you spa when you're there?
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Maybe one spa? We'll see how it goes. I'm feeling
is that a hard spa or is it just a
So I'm finishing all my hard spa here in Australia.
That was the whole purpose. Finish it all here and
then go there when I'm already nice and prepped. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
And so you're trying to sort of build back up,
so to speak. You know you're not not to you know,
you're not too trying to thrash myself.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
Yeah, yeah, trying to stay sharp.
Speaker 1 (54:46):
You're right, So fitness, your fitness should be peaking in
a week. It's pretty good now, and you want to
keep it there. You want to keep it out a level.
Are you someone who loses the fitness quickly or you
can maintain easily? Yeah, that's pretty cool. And will you run? Yeah,
you continue to run.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, I'll do a bit of running. Yeah. I just
enjoy running. That's one of my things. I can put
my earphones in and just casually just recovery. Top thing
for me. Yeah, not to kill myself or anything.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
You mentioned scientific. More scientific is the weight in waight? Yeah?
But is that about knowing? So for example, getting a
dex a scan, seeing where your weight's carried and then
doing proper calculations, making assumptions. Do you do a metabolic rate?
All of that stuff, how many calories you burn at rest?
(55:35):
And then you start to add assumptions on and then
not just and I'm working.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
On calories to eat in a week, how many calories
to each daily?
Speaker 1 (55:44):
And does who does that for your chef? Where you've
got a chef and.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
I've got my strength coach is also dieticians, so he
helps me, helps us out with all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
So you go through the whole process. So when you finish,
when you have when you have your fight and you win,
and I've seen you post stuff on on on Instagram
doing this. Do you go out and have a big
meal after? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Yeah, there's a place in Vegas we always go. I
used to go every weekend. It's called Italy. It's got
the best paninis in Vegas.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
There's bread, the bread, and yeah that's that because all
of a sudden, it's a big reward because you haven't
had that for twelve weeks.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
Yeah, yeah, that'd be right. You usually go to this
one restaurant every weekend. I've been missing out on pizza
every weekend, so right now because you like your pizza,
I love my pizza. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
So, in other words, you don't live this weird strict
life which most people probably think this. This guy's like
so highly just wanted you know, he never overreach. Maybe
you don't over do you. Do you drink? No, you
don't drink any alcohol, not just when you're preparing, but
at any time. You've never had really had alcohol.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
No, it's never been my thing.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
You don't care about it.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
At my wedding I did, of course. Yeah yeah yeah yeah,
but not not not since my boxing career start. Really yeah,
now you live.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
Forever good your organisms seriously, Like that's that's pretty rare
for someone who's thirty years of age today, you know,
like not many people would, even even fighters, like I mean,
I member, Jeff, he used to drink like outside of training.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
Yeah, my dad, My dad used to drink. Yeah, it's
never never really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
So you don't have a voda or something like that.
Do you speak Russian? Good?
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Well?
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, like fluent, fluent, And that's my obviously is you
know what.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
We went to live in Moscow in two thousand and
nine and eight, so I learned how to speak and read, write,
interact with everyone there when when I lived in Russia.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
Wow, So and you continue to practice, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:55):
I just just learned and was able to. Like I
always knew how to talk Russian, always new, but reading
and writing and all that stuff was a bit harder.
Of course, we went to Russian school once a week
when we were young. But still yeah, here in Australia.
But when when you moved to Moscow and you you
get taken to a local school, not an international school,
(58:15):
but a local school. To be Russian, you have to
speak Russian, you got to read and write. So yeah,
I learned how to do it there and remains with
me now.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
Did your brother speak Russian?
Speaker 2 (58:27):
Mikita speaks Russian. Yes, I'm not sure. If you can
read and write, he would have been much younger. Yeah,
he was much younger, same as my sister. Yeah, I'm
sure that if they can read and write, but they
can they can speak.
Speaker 1 (58:38):
Would So would you speak Russian to your mum now?
Speaker 2 (58:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (58:41):
Well like yeah, yeah, you ring up and say something
in Russian?
Speaker 2 (58:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (58:45):
Just is it just for the purpose of intimacy with
your mum? Or is it no, you're just more practice.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
It's weird. It's just like your sort if you speak
another language, it feels a bit weird really. Yeah. Yeah,
like yeah, if I speak English with my mom and
be like, she'd be like, we are you talking to
me in English? For? You know, like she speaks to
me in English? Like we're talking to me in English
for We've always grown up just talking Russian. That's how
(59:12):
my other language to each other.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
Yeah, And as my dad, same as my dad. Whenever
we speak, I'll always been Russian.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
That sort of makes sense because your dad's living in Russia.
But what about your grandfather?
Speaker 2 (59:22):
Yeah that's Russian, is it? Yeah? He's got no English
at all.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
Oh, really.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yeah, you'd think like after thirty years that you pick
up a little bit, but no, he chooses. He's a
big chooser. Like he chooses a lot of things, yeah,
to not do.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Yeah, but he gets by it works.
Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yeah, of course he goes from his house to the
gym and back. That's really, that's all he needs to go.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
It's funny, like to the supermarket. He just reminded me
of you know, I might before my father passed away
last year, I was together, we sat day and when
I was gather ice just try my hardest to speak
as much Greek to him as possible because it wasn't well.
And yeah, it's it's actually a pretty special moment when
he speak to your parents in there. In his case,
it was more a dialectic dialect of Greek from where
(01:00:10):
he came from. And I wouldn't do so well in Athens,
but does well in his village. And but it's it's
when I thought about after he passed away, how important
that was to him and to me too actually, to
be honestly, it's one of the things I hold on
to and that's pretty important.
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Mate.
Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Don't ever let that one go because your mum's still young,
but like not that anybody's sort of going to pass away.
But how old you know, your dad's like close to
seventy when he's sixty five sixty, he's sixty something sixty,
Jeff fifty's I think he's better old th Jeff. And
he was born okay, so he's not even sixty yet.
(01:00:46):
He's a bit younger than a fank just turned sixty. Yeah,
so there you go. But that sort of stuff made
is really important to you and to your parents, your grandfather.
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Future brother, future brother and sister. Back in the Russian ones,
the young ones, they're only going to talk Russian. Yeah,
they're not going to talk much.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Do you speak to that much? No, I don't, but
they will be curious, of course. My brother is, Yeah,
of course, of course, my two brothers.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
We hope that we can visit Russia like one day soon,
sooner rather than.
Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
How old are they?
Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Good question one? Just probably in year one and then
maybe in year three.
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Yeah, like the only little.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah like that seven.
Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
I wonder if they watch you fight.
Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I'm sure they would. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure my
dad's put it on.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Of course you will, and I'm sure you well like
like you can imagine them in Russia in Moscows. There's
my brother. That's my brother. They won't really sort of
have nightmares about her. If you're losing, they won't be
elated if you win. I mean they won't neither way,
but still they will be thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
That's my Yeah, that's pretty cool. Cool.
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I can't imagine being told that as a kid, that
there's your brother there. But there's your brother there, and
he's fighting in them gyms in Las Vegas for the
world title. Just one there he is doing that. That's
something to fight for.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Yeah, of course, of course. And I think it's a
big probably a big trip out for my dad to
even be able to comprehend the fact that I'm fighting
at MGM, you know, like his son is fighting on
the stage where he fought his whole career.
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Yeah, that's that's pretty amazing. So I just want to
go back finally to the twenties that's coming up. What
are we going to see?
Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Mate? Just a real strategic strategic fight for me, with
a bit of blood and guts and war.
Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
You ready to go to war?
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
I've been through Helen back, you know, you know, I
know what it is and and you're comfortable with it. Yeah,
I'm not afraid of that. My biggest fear in life
was losing, and once you go past it just shows
how insignificant it really is, you know. So right now
everything's just a victory.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
And if if he wants war, you're going to bring it.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
I'm gonna bring it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
And if it wants nuclear, you give him nuclear, of course.
But otherwise he'll end up having to fight. You'll fight.
Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Yeah, it doesn't know what he's in for.
Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
So good
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