An updated version of this article will be featured in the next issue of The Ring. L ike a horror film, many watched March’s gruesome unified world title fight between Tim Tszyu and Sebastian Fundora through their fingers. Conversely, Tim’s younger brother Nikita sat ringside through 12 bloody rounds, wide-eyed and spattered in envy.
It wasn’t the occasion, the titles or the purses that so enchanted the fellow professional boxer – rather the savage cut, the busted nose and the resultant red mess that stained the Las Vegas ring to the point that it would have been fitting to replace the ropes with crime scene tape. “Seeing all the blood, it was quite arousing for me,” said Nikita. “I’m attracted to that type of gruesomeness.
I was jealous! At the end of the fight, he (Tim) cut his glove and he licked it and I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, thank you.’” Tim Tszyu and Sebastian Fundora engage during their bloodbath battle in March. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images) You see, Nikita Tszyu is a bit different.
Two and a half years ago, at the press conference to announce his debut fight, the younger Tszyu offered a quote that unintentionally spawned a ring moniker. “Some people used to describe my brother more as a surgeon and they’d describe me as a butcher. We do the same type of job, but we do things in a different way.
I’m a little more messy in that sense,” said Nikita. At 26, “The Butcher” is three years Tim’s junior and too young to .