Boxing 2023: Nikita Tszyu vs Dylan Biggs fight, undercard, full fight card details, how to watch, date, start time, Mark Schleibs

Mark Schleibs rarely goes anywhere without a letter which, handwritten in blue ink, was penned some 30 years ago by his father.

That same old man who, should the pair actually meet, he’s promised to knock out.

Or as the boxer himself puts it, “f…ing chin him”.

Yet after that?

“I’d pick dad up,” Schleibs says, “and hug him.

“Which sounds weird, right?

“But it’s no bulls….

“Just as my story, it’s no fairytale, either.”

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Call it a truth proved by that old, crinkled note which, written partly in Arabic, Schleibs right now keeps in the centre console of his car.

A slip of paper which, created shortly before his birth – and gifted by mum at 18 – is his only link to the biological father, at best guess a travelling Saudi businessman, who he’s never met.

A fella too who is also the reason Schleibs first went and boxed.

At the time, this son of a Filipino bride was 11.

With he and mum sharing a ramshackle Melbourne bungalow with the ageing Aussie bank robber who, years earlier, in the late 90s, had flown the pair into his life.

An existence where stick ups and stir had long since been replaced by the hum drum of slowly drinking a carton each day.

That, and disciplining his adopted son just like you’d expect an old school crook.

“Had big hands, too,” grins Schleibs, whose own fists would see him become an amateur prospect by 13 and, even before leaving high school, a two-time national champ.

Same as when turning professional in 2012, this super bantamweight went and won his first dozen fights.

All the while fuelled by that handwritten letter.

“Me wanting to become a world champion,” he says, “so dad would see me on TV”.

Into his mid twenties too, Schleibs would also fight, and beat, various other battles, including depression, alcohol abuse, two suicide attempts, even caring for a mother whose schizophrenia had morphed from crying in a corner, then running into traffic, to eventual hospitalisation.

All of which could’ve made him the biggest story in Australian boxing this week.

But he isn’t.

No, instead, the honour belongs to Nikita Tszyu.

Aka, The Butcher.

That hyped Aussie prodigy who next Wednesday night in Newcastle – sorry, Tszyucastle – is looking to continue his rise and rise by taking, via force, the national super welterweight title from reigning champ Dylan Biggs.

Which for Schleibs, matters.

Understanding that it is through the Tszyu boys, both Nikita and his WBO world champion brother Tim, that this fighter now speaks with his own son.

Or will.

Just as soon as he lands that elusive win.

Understanding that while he may have started out boxing for the father he has never known, Schleibs now fights for something far different — a microphone.

Specifically, the one Main Event’s Ben Damon offers up several times each No Limit fight night to whichever man, or woman, gets their hand raised.

Which again, is why the Tszyu boys matter.

With Schleibs aware, alone, he is no chance of securing all the hype, press or national spotlight that comes with a Main Event Pay-Per-View.

But when a Tszyu fights?

Well, it gifts him the chance to not only star somewhere on the undercard, but grab that microphone.

Knowing only then can he speak to his boy Oscar, now eight.

A son this proud Melbourne father hasn’t seen or spoken to in nine months.

Which is no small thing given every day after training, Schleibs drives his old grey Mazda slowly past the same Housing Commission joint where, out in the Melbourne suburbs, his boy currently lives with mum.

“Hoping,” he says, “just to see Oscar playing in the yard”.

Yet the fighter, he never has.

Or not since January.

Which again, is why he needs those Tszyu boys winning.

Why he needs a win, too.

Because losing fighters, no, they don’t get handed any microphone.

And without it … well, how does this father let his boy know he loves him?

Which is exactly what Schleibs is planning next Wednesday on a night built around the younger Tszyu.

Win, stare down a camera barrel, and speak to his boy.

That same son who, right now, he sees only in those photographs he keeps close.

A reality which, on the day we speak about it all, brings the fighter to tears.

“Although every day I cry at least once,” Schleibs will reveal later while also conceding how, years back, in his early 20s, he was hardly the ideal father himself.

Same as more recently, his struggles have been amplified by the pain that is he and new partner Rose, together two years, suffering through a miscarriage.

“So, yes, I’ll put my hand up,” he starts.

“I know there are two sides to every story and when Oscar was conceived, I was young, wasn’t boxing, played up on his mum, doing all sorts of stuff.

“It was bad.

“I tried destroying myself.

“I had no role model.

“Nothing.

“But eventually, and like so many young men, I learned.

“Grew up.

“I’m not that same person anymore.”

Which for Schleibs now means being the father he has never known himself.

With the fighter, now 30, explaining how while he eventually made peace with a stepfather who, he says, battled his own internal pain, there is nothing there this adopted son wants to revisit.

“Because the guy, he never even came to my first amateur fight,” Schleibs recalls. “Didn’t want to pay for a ticket.

“Still, I won in 51 seconds anyway.

“Then walked home and through the front door to ‘so, you f…ing lose?’.”

When it comes to his biological father too, Schleibs has only a note, a business address and a photograph which, after some work from a third party, was sent his way only recently.

“Mum never showed me the letter until I was 18,” he says of those words which, from a father who left just months into the pregnancy, still talks of love and wanting to be together.

“I kept asking about my dad, who he was, where he was, and she just said ‘read this’.

“And when I did, balled my eyes out.

“For the first time, I realised he had cared.

“Still, it’s tough.

“I’ve felt alone for so much of my life.”

So as for the photograph?

“I’ve shown that to mum,” he shrugs, “but she isn’t sure it’s him”.

So for now, temporarily, that pursuit is paused.

With Schleibs instead turning all attention to next Wednesday’s showdown against Shamal Ram Anuj, the reigning Fijian national champ.

And you know come fight week, our man will entertain.

Just as he did before jerking the curtain for Tim Tszyu’s world title win over Carlos Ocampo in June, when he and Queenslander Rocky Ogden engaged in some wonderful fight week tongue fu which almost boiled over at open workouts.

You want grit?

OK, how about Schleibs moving up two weight classes for the opportunity.

Off the couch and on four weeks notice too, with that pain of a miscarriage still raw.

But then the fighter who wanted nothing but a win and that microphone — he got knocked out in the first round.

“Which just wasn’t me,” he says.

Ditto a run of outs which, for all sorts of reasons, currently sees him without a win in four years.

Or counted another way, 1570 days.

With this former amateur star forced to sit out almost two years during Covid, while also taking consecutive losses – the first of his career – on either side of against young guns Brock Jarvis and Ogden.

Yet now, Schleibs is back.

And fighting in every sense.

Especially when you hear how he still cares for his mum every day, and will soon take her name. Just as his autistic younger brother Nicholas, a mate he has done more than a little to protect, is now driving, thriving, even boxing himself.

Apart from detailing cars for extra cash, Schleibs also trains young fighters at his local gym and is quickly building a reputation for his caring, nurturing demeanour around the wannabe stars.

“But still, I break down and cry every day,” he concedes.

“Usually it’s when I’m alone, driving the car.

“And I’m not afraid to say that.

“Just as I know I’m not the only bloke out there doing it tough.

“My son, he only lives two streets from mum.

“And every day I drive by hoping to catch him as he’s coming home from school, or playing in the front yard with his dog, Trinity.

“Which sounds sad, I know.

“And it breaks me.

“At times, I’ll try to numb all thoughts of Oscar just to get through the day.

“But then I’ll get angry at myself for not acknowledging him which is … yeah … it’s just hard, bro.

“It’s tough trying to understand how I’ve ever let this happen.”

Which is why for months now, Schleibs has been sweating, training, improving so that, come fight night, he can grab that microphone.

Aware as with all of his fights, Oscar will be watching.

“And my drive, it’s to be with my son,” he says.

“To be the best father I can.

“Sure, I’m no stranger to losses.

“And right now every day is a struggle.

“It’s f…ing tough.

“But I’m gunna keep going.

“Keep fighting.

“Because I know what it’s like to have no father.

“To have nobody.

“I know, first hand, exactly why Oscar needs me.”