Jeff Horn has warned Tim Tszyu to expect the unexpected ahead of his U.S. debut on Sunday, opening up on the “mind games” he faced in the lead-up to his bout with Terrence Crawford.
Horn said he was the victim of “dodgied-up scales” back in 2018 after a weigh-in drama prior to his fight with Crawford.
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“That is definitely a major point over there,” Horn said of the mind games, speaking on Main Event ahead of Tszyu’s fight with Terrell Gausha.
“Where you don’t know what is going on and they are giving you things. I got given the scales, thought yep I’m on and way under. I’m always very professional on my weight and made sure I was going to be under.
“I then weighed in under their test scales, went in and did the proper weigh-in and thought: ‘How does this work? This is a set up’. I was underweight on the scales they gave me.”
That was not all though, with Horn also revealing he was on the wrong end of a brutal verbal barrage before his fight with Crawford.
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“Everytime I walked past them it was swearing, belittling me,” he said.
“They put you in different rooms. It’s the mind games of trying to treat you just a little bit less than the other guys.”
Australian boxing legend Barry Michael, meanwhile, said he heard “disgusting comments” from the Crawford camp prior to that Horn bout.
“They were also making some disgusting comments about what Australians potentially do to kangaroos,” he said.
“It was disgusting. I could not believe it. They were nasty, the Crawford crew.”
In saying all of that, Horn is not too worried for Tszyu, whose “steely nature” should help him deal with any distractions on Sunday.
“There is a lot of pressure, the first time fighting on the big stage,” Horn said.
“It can be tough, the transition of getting off the plane, doing the last bit of training. It’s that little bit of added pressure we don’t have when fighting here.
“Little bits chip away and I think Tim has that steely nature that he will be able to handle that.”
It comes after Jeff Fenech warned earlier in the week that Tszyu has to knock out Gausha or risk being robbed by the judges like he was 30 years ago against Azumah Nelson.
“Tim has to knock him out there because I don’t trust the judges,” Fenech told foxsports.com.au on Tuesday.
“I’ve been through it there and I honestly believe Tim has to knock this guy out.”
