“Only [$10 million]? I’m being serious,” Tszyu told this masthead.

Told that sum would be in American dollars, he replied: “Well, that’s a bit better.

“I remember two or three years ago, they released the highest-paid athletes [list] in Australia. I was in the top 30 or something. Someone said to me, ‘Wow, congratulations, blah, blah, blah’.

“For me, with my winning mindset, if you’re not No.1 then there’s nothing to say congratulations about. I compete with everything that I do. If it’s not No.1 of being the best at something, then I’m not content with it.”

Tszyu was scheduled to fight Keith Thurman, a two-time world champion whose only loss was a split-decision result to hall-of-famer Manny Pacquiao. When Thurman withdrew due to injury, Tszyu turned his attention to Fundora, a 197-centimetre southpaw, at short notice.

Tszyu’s manager Glen Jennings, who also guided Kostya’s career, was reluctant to discuss finances. However, he said whatever Tszyu would make fighting Crawford would “dwarf” the paydays of previous Australian athletes.

‘I compete with everything that I do. If it’s not No.1 of being the best at something, then I’m not content with it.’

Tim Tszyu

“It would put Tim into the highest category,” Jennings said. “In the space of a week, we went from a non-title, 155-pound catchweight fight against Keith Thurman to a 154-pound unification belt fight. Then two days after that, Crawford enters via the WBC mandatory and we’re into the stratosphere.

“It’s just how it plays out. When you have the pound-for-pound greatest in the world lining up to fight Tim Tszyu as the winner on Saturday night, then it becomes a huge fight. It’s grown arms and legs tenfold.”

Jennings said a win on the weekend would turn Tszyu into a superstar.

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“We are now talking about Tim Tszyu as an enigma here,” Jennings said. “They are saying, ‘Who is this Australian bloke who keeps fighting and winning?’

“The Fundora fight couldn’t have come about any better. [Former boxer] Dewey Cooper said it in an interview the other day, ‘There’s not one fighter in America who would change horses from a five-foot-eight orthodox in Keith Thurman, to a six-foot-six southpaw in Fundora in the space of 10 seconds’.

“The Americans, in that narrative about him not being scared of anyone and wanting to fight, they are flabbergasted over here. I don’t say that lightly, they can’t believe that with that much at stake, Tim would flip over to a southpaw on 10 days’ notice.

“We have taken the American public by storm with this and they’re all saying, ‘This guy is authentic, he’s real, he really wants to fight’.”

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