Here's how Brian Mendoza can beat Tim Tszyu in title match, according to his ex-trainer
Oct. 12—It all started on Foothill Road.
Some 13 years ago, Brian Mendoza walked into Albuquerque trainer Fidel Maldonado's South Valley gym with a friend of his.
It didn't take long for Maldonado to realize he had something special.
Blessed with exceptional punching power, Mendoza, 16 at the time, also had intelligence and an uncommon work ethic.
"The kid never left the gym," Maldonado said on Thursday during a phone interview, a bit more than 48 hours before Mendoza was to step into an Australian boxing ring to fight Aussie native Tim Tszyu for the latter's World Boxing Organization junior middleweight title. "He was always the first one there and the last one to leave.
"He was the hardest-working fighter I've ever had."
And smart? Punching power alone, the young boxer knew from the start, would take him only so far.
"I'm not taught to have a certain style," Mendoza, then 19 and still an amateur, told the Journal in a 2013 interview. "I'm taught to adapt."
A boxer's ability to adapt, of course, applies outside the ring as well as inside the ropes.
In 2019, Mendoza took stock of his pro career. Yes, he was 16-0 with 10 knockouts. But at 25, still based in Albuquerque and training with Maldonado, beset by promotional problems, he wasn't getting the big fights under the bright lights that would help him display his full talent and earn him the big money.
So, the Cleveland High graduate left Albuquerque — and Maldonado's Atrisco Boxing Club — for Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hard feelings? Not at all, Maldonado said. "He had to go and take a chance to be great, and there he is. He's being great."
Yet, Maldonado couldn't help but say, "I showed him everything he knows."
As of Thursday, Mendoza (22-2, 16 KOs) was a 4-1 underdog against Tszyu — the unbeaten (23-0, 17 KOs) son of former world champion Kostya Tszyu.
To beat the odds, and to beat Tszyu, Maldonado believes his former pupil needs to dust off some of the skills he learned on Foothill Road.
"Out there (in Las Vegas), they've taken away from him," Maldonado said. "He bangs a little more, (but) he gets hit a little bit more."
In all likelihood, Maldonado said, Mendoza will have to score a knockout to claim the title on Tszyu's home turf.
"(To win by decision), I think Brian would have to put that guy down two or three times," he said. "Tim Tszyu, they're putting him on a pedestal already (in Australia)."
He believes Mendoza is fully capable of scoring that knockout, as he did in spectacular victories over former world champion Jeison Rosario and then-WBA interim champion Sebastian Fundora.
But Maldonado noted that Mendoza was trailing badly on the scorecards before he tagged Fundora with a thunderous left hook, then finished him with a right, in the seventh round of their fight on April 8.
"He was getting his ass beat," Maldonado said. "It was awful."
The knockout won't come for Mendoza on Saturday (actually Sunday afternoon down under), Maldonado said, unless his former pupil flashes those Atrisco Boxing skills and doesn't take the punishment from Tszyu that he was absorbing against the lighter-hitting Fundora.
"He'll have to be a smart, disciplined fighter," he said. "Know when to attack, when to counter. He should make this fight with his counter-punching, slipping (punches) and hitting him with shots he doesn't see, and using his feet a little bit.
"And I think he'll take the guy out."
