Nikita Tszyu has watched the tape, lived with the doubt and changed his mind. Now he wants America.
A month on from his controversial draw with Ben Mahoney in Brisbane, the younger Tszyu brother has flipped his original verdict and is adamant he should have had his hand raised.
Back on the night, he did something you rarely see in boxing. Before the social media slow-motion breakdowns, before the pundits weighed in, Tszyu stood there and admitted he thought he’d lost. The judges couldn’t agree — three wildly different scorecards produced a stalemate — and Mahoney celebrated like he’d just unified the division, drawing scorn from Tim Tszyu at ringside and fury from the Tszyu camp.
Then came the replays.
“I’m not a very good judge,” Nikita said after revisiting the fight. He broke it down himself and came to a very different conclusion. “I scored it 7-3. In a good way, 8-4. I thought I won the majority of the middle rounds. I gave him the first two rounds and the last two rounds, but [I won] everything else in between.
“I don’t regret it, because it was what I felt at the time.”
That honesty, and that shift, frame where he stands now. Still undefeated. Still raw in some areas. But more certain than ever about where he’s heading.
The Sydney southpaw, 29, believes his domestic apprenticeship is just about complete. His record — 12-1-0 with 10 knockouts — suggests a fighter who has done his rounds in Australia and is ready for a bigger stage. For a long time, his team resisted the urge to rush, preferring to build slowly rather than fling him into the deep end of the US scene just because of the Tszyu surname.
The family name has already taken its lumps there. Tim Tszyu surrendered his IBO super-welterweight title to Sebastian Fundora in the United States, then endured a punishing rematch defeat and another brutal world-title loss to Bakhram Murtazaliev. America has not been kind to the second-generation Tszyus.
Nikita wants to walk straight back into that fire.
“I think I can figure it out,” he told AAP, speaking about the step up and what the Mahoney fight had taught him. “This fight was a great learning curve for me and it puts things a lot into perspective. I’ve got to be a lot more professional with the way I do things.”
That line wasn’t a cliché. He meant it literally.
“I can’t be landscaping close to the fight. I can’t be doing woodworking close to the fight. Just some bad habits I do.
“Yeah, I’ve got to be a professional athlete.”
It’s an unusually candid admission from a fighter on the rise: that the problem isn’t just opponents, judges, or game plans, but the life wrapped around the training camp. The Mahoney bout forced him to confront that. The messy scorecards and the backlash around the draw didn’t just sting; they sharpened his focus.
Now the conversation has turned to dates and venues, and one in particular stands out.
No Limit Boxing is pushing to land Tszyu on the undercard of the David Benavidez–Michal Cieslak unified blockbuster in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 12. That would be the kind of night that changes a career — a US debut on a major card, under the lights of a fight-mad city, with all the expectations that come with being a Tszyu.
If that deal falls through, his path won’t stall. No Limit has already confirmed he will fight at least once more in 2026 on home soil.
Either way, the next time Nikita Tszyu walks to the ring, he knows there can be no more half-measures, no more side jobs in the final stretch of camp. The domestic doubts have hardened into conviction. The only question now is whether his American chapter opens in Phoenix or back in Australia — and how ready he truly is when that first bell rings.
