Tua comes out against smacking

David Tua says that the 'anti-smacking' legislation should be left as it is. Photo / Getty Images

Heavyweight boxer David Tua says he is in favour of the anti-smacking legislation remaining intact, saying that such punishment must always be "a final resort only".

Tua, going into final preparations for Hamilton's 'Fight Of The Century' against Shane Cameron on October 3, talked about the anti-smacking debate after mentioning his own youthful introduction to boxing - which was definitely not politically correct and would have horrified bill architect Sue Bradford, among others.

A young David Tua, then still in Samoa, was made to fight bigger, better boys. If they landed a punch on Tua, his father (who then owned a convenience store) would reward them with a sweet. Tua's reward: he got the strap.

"I didn't really like boxing in those days and it was hard for me to understand ... why he was pushing me so hard.

"Many, many years later I asked him what all that had been about, because, man, I thought I must have been adopted or something to be getting all that punishment. I mean, I was only eight or nine. I had three brothers but they were never pushed that hard so I wondered: 'Why me?'

"My father said it had been because he recognised that I had a special gift, more than my brothers, and that he had to be harder on me to bring that special gift out."

Tua recognises the logic and the love in that statement but has chosen a different path.

"I think there is always another way," he says. "Discipline is important but there are always other ways to achieve it, things like 'time out'. Kids can provoke you but you have to keep a rein on your emotions.

"That's why boxing has been so good to me - I have had to learn to control my emotions and my response. It's just like you can't just get mad and get all aggressive in the ring - that's a mistake. You surrender the science of the thing to the other guy. He's in control and scoring off you while you're all wild and unfocused.

"Kids are like that too. You don't retaliate - you take time out, they take time out and you and they think more clearly. Smacking can only be a final, last resort and should never be a regular thing."

Tua says he lives by the maxim of martial arts great Bruce Lee.

"He said that you should be like water - one of the softest substances in the world but also one of the most powerful."