In their second fight.. At the beginning when Jimmy Lennon is introducing TyZu it sounds like the whole arena is booing him
He was cheered during his ring walk. He also got a sizable pop when Jimmy wrapped up the intro and said his name - and then an even bigger one as he was knocking Sharmba out. Sharmba got a mix of boos and cheers as well, and the former just sort of continued and intensified throughout most of Tszyu's introduction without ever really subsiding. I think it was just a drunk, rowdy crowd in Phoenix that night. [yt]s83qwCi2AUc[/yt] More cynical outlook: there may have also been a bit of a divide in the audience with some racial tensions, going by the fact that different pockets seemed to be alternately upset and exuberant whenever either man landed good shot.
You can see in the background there are groups segregated by color, and Phoenix does have a large white (and kinda racist) majority so there was probably a big solidarity turnout from the black community (explaining why they're represented in the crowd in probably higher proportion than in the city population) in support of Sharmba even though he wasn't from anywhere near there. Most people saw this as being a pick 'em heading in, even though Mitchell was officially a 3-1 underdog, given Tszyu getting older and being rusty, and Mitchell having actually done pretty well in the first match, so it may have seemed a chance to see a brother defend a world title successfully and get revenge on a sliding, no-longer-invincible white boy at the same time.
