We recorded this with Tim Tszyu last year, and his shower story keeps coming up in recent episodes, so we have pulled fifteen minutes of it back out of the vault. Tim is a former world champion from Sydney, and boxing runs deep in the family. His dad Kostya was an undisputed world champion and Hall of Famer, and his younger brother Nikita fights professionally too. Since we spoke he has strung together back to back wins, the most recent over Denis Nurja on Easter Sunday, and on 26 July he steps in with Errol Spence Jr in Sydney, the biggest fight of his career. We appreciate him making the time back when he did.

In this section, Tim describes what a flow state actually feels like from inside the ropes. The place where the world switches off, time slows down, where he can "hear his opponent's heartbeat". He explains why there is no such thing as a fluke punch, and how one clean right hand is really years of repetition. We get into stacking days, staying hungry when success comes easily, and why he refuses to get comfortable. He talks about the emptiness of his first loss and how it made him want to reclaim his throne, the five weeks between that loss and his wedding that finally gave him some balance, and the shower ritual he uses to wash off a hard day and reset before a fight. Plus the training methods he chose not to inherit from his dad, and the grandfather who still tells him he looks fat.

Listen to the full episode with Tim Tszyu: Spotify · Apple Podcasts

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