Bakhram Murtazaliev Reveals He Broke His Hand A Week Before Tim Tszyu Fight

Bakhram Murtazaliev fought Tim Tszyu with a broken hand.

A week before Murtazaliev was set to fight Tszyu, he broke his hand, his head coach Roma Kalantarya revealed.

“Our game plan was at 50 percent going into the fight because Bakhram didn’t have his right hand,” Kalantaryan told BoxingScene. “Bakhram’s knuckle around his pinky was gone. You couldn’t see the knuckle. We were icing his hand all week but he didn’t want to cancel the fight even though he had a broken hand. We didn’t tell anyone. I told him ‘Don’t throw your right hand unless you really have to’. So we focused on throwing more open right hooks instead of straight rights, only when needed. I’m sure Tszyu was expecting us to throw more right hands.” 

Despite Murtazaliev fighting with a broken hand, he was able to drop Tim Tszyu multiple times en route to the win. It was a statement-win and Kalantaryan says the plan was to show off his power early on, despite the broken hand.

“Our plan was to test his power in the first round and test his shots with aggression,” said Kalantaryan. “Bakhram came back to the corner after the first round and said, ‘Coach, I do not feel any of his punches’. I told him to just make sure to see the punches coming. He was able to change the fight with his one-punch power. It doesn’t matter how hard the fight is. If Bakhram lands, it’s fireworks. A lot of people are talking about how easy the fight was, but they don’t know the hard work and preparation we went through over the last 10 weeks. We were prepared for a hard war, but the final battle was easy.”

Bakhram Murtazaliev is now 23-0 as a pro and coming off a TKO win over Tszyu. Before that, he scored a KO win over Jack Culcay.