Australian boxing welcomes a great milestone this weekend, with Kostya Tszyu becoming just the second modern fighter from Down Under to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Tszyu will join Mexican legend Julio Cesar Chavez and 'Iron' Mike Tyson in Canastota, New York, on Saturday to receive the prestigious award in his first year of eligibility.
Australia has always been a country that punched far above its weight in the boxing world, with fighters such as Jimmy Carruthers, Lionel Rose, Johnny Famechon and Jeff Harding all securing world titles in the post-war era.
Jeff Fenech, the only other Australian to receive the honour that will be bestowed upon Tszyu this weekend, won world titles in three different weight divisions, and was robbed of a fourth by some vision-impaired Las Vegas judges in his 1991 fight with Azumah Nelson.
In more recent years, men such as Michael Katsidis, Vic Darchinyan, Robbie Peden and Lovemore N'Dou have done the nation proud by roaming the globe and taking on the best their divisions have to offer.
But the simple fact of the matter is that, as a fighter, Tszyu was better than all of them – and in most cases by the length of the straight.
Whether it was his extensive amateur background in the regimented Soviet system, or the fact that he was simply a harder worker who paid more attention to detail than his Australian brethren, Tszyu was something special when he climbed between those ropes.
For those of us who can remember the way he pole-axed Darrell Hiles in his professional debut on the undercard of the 1992 Fenech-Nelson rematch, and shed a tear 13 years later at the sight of the proud warrior beaten and bloodied on his stool after 11 rounds of punishment from Ricky Hatton, you'll know what I mean.
Tszyu's road in professional boxing began in 1992 when he emigrated to Australia from Russia after taking gold in the 1991 world amateur championships in Sydney.
In the early part of his pro career Tszyu was a like a bloodthirsty shark, bolting out of the corner and swarming over his opponents to test their chin and heart.
That approach carried him to the IBF junior-welterweight title in just his 14th professional fight, and he made five successful defences before running into an inspired Vince Phillips in Atlantic City in 1997, with Kostya on the end of a brutal 10th-round technical knockout.
With those around him urging him to quit, Tszyu, at 28, did the hardest thing of all – he changed.
The second part of his career was even more impressive than the first, as Tszyu reinvented himself as a more intelligent fighter, no longer content with trying to bludgeon his opponents into submission.
He embarked on a 13-fight unbeaten streak, the high point of which was a second-round knockout of Zab Judah in 2001 to unify the junior-welterweight division, something no man had been able to achieve in over 30 years.
Along the way Tszyu defeated such names as Rafael Ruelas, Diosbelys Hurtado, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Chavez, Sharmba Mitchell (twice) and Judah.
He ended his career in 2005 boasting a record of 31 wins with only two defeats. In world title bouts he was 15-2, with only five of those title fights taking place in Australia.
If there is one knock on Tszyu's career it's that he didn't face