David Nyika has revealed a timeline for his return to the ring from injury, identifying a major date on the boxing calendar as his targetted date.
The Kiwi cruiserweight hopes to have recovered from a
David Nyika has revealed a timeline for his return to the ring from injury, identifying a major date on the boxing calendar as his targetted date.
The Kiwi cruiserweight hopes to have recovered from a hand injury in time for an October return, so he can take part on the undercard for the undisputed lightweight championship bout between Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on October 16.
Nyika was part of the event the first time the two headliners fought back in early June, and confirmed to the Herald he had been in contact with the event's promoters about getting amongst the action again.
"I've been in talks. It's definitely a card I would like to star on," he said.
"I think I was well received, so I'd love to get on that one again. Obviously being such a hotly contested division, there's going to be a lot of eyes on that event."
𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 🔒 𝗜𝗡.@Realdevinhaney 🆚 @georgekambosos
— Rod Laver Arena (@RodLaverArena) August 23, 2022
🎟 On sale 1pm Friday 26 August: https://t.co/DDLTxoswTx pic.twitter.com/dy4O69bmp3
Nyika claimed a unanimous decision win over Australia Karim Maatalla in a five-round swing bout on that card at Melbourne's Marvel Stadium, and followed it up with a second-round stoppage win over Louis Marsters to improve his professional record to 4-0 a month later.
However, Nyika aggravated the injury in that bout and has spent the past six weeks ensuring his recovery goes smoothly.
"It's been a steady mend. I'm still managing it," he said.
"It really just comes with the territory, but I've had hand issues in the past and I'm taking every precaution now to make sure that it's not going to be a problem moving forwards.
"I picked up a fracture, which wasn't the worst of my concerns. It was sore before I got in the ring, but by that point it was a bit too late to pull out. I took a bit of a risk, and it got a lot worse, but I didn't really notice it because of the adrenaline, until after the fight."
The injury forced him to withdraw from the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where he had planned to return to the amateur ranks in a bid to win his third consecutive Commonwealth gold.
Instead, he returned to spend some time at home in New Zealand and reset. He was still training, of course, but without putting his hand in jeopardy of re-injury, and worked alongside Honey Hireme-Smiler and Liam Messam for their respective bouts on the Fight For Life card. Nyika cornered both fighters on the night, with both claiming wins.
He said that time at home had allowed him a chance to refresh and he would be coming back strong when he did return to the ring.
"I'm taking every precaution. I'm super fit right now. I went home for a few weeks and just trained like a maniac. I'm going to be super fit, my hands are rested – I just need to be careful easing back into it. I'm going to be a monster by mid-October."
While Nyika has been in talks to make his return on the Haney v Kambosos Jr rematch card, which has the likes of Lou DiBella's DiBella Entertainment and Bob Arum's Top Rank involved as well as Kiwi outfit Duco Events, the 27-year-old remains a free agent in terms of linking up to a long-term deal with a promoter.
Throughout his young career, he has had the opportunity to compete on some big cards, and said for where he is in his career, his current situation was perfect.
"I've got things in the works. I'm pretty comfortable with where I'm at at the moment. There's no real rush to sign with any one promoter, so as long as I'm staying active and getting good tough fights – and obviously getting paid – I'm happy as is and my record is going to keep getting prettier and prettier, which is obviously going to be more of a draw for big promoters."
Nyika recently returned to Australia to get back to work with coach Noel Thornberry in Gatton - a rural town to the west of Brisbane.
After spending the past couple of years bouncing around the globe looking to soak up as much knowledge as possible from different camps, Nyika said he was starting to feel at home in Australia.
"I'm training out at my coach's house, and we've got some good roads around here, lots of sun, lots of brown snakes that I haven't seen yet – so I've got to keep my reflexes sharp. I'm really happy out here. It's a little bit out of the way, which is perfect and ideal for a camp setting. All is well and I'm enjoying the training, which is a big one.
"I'm finally starting to feel at home here in Australia, to be honest. I've bought a car; I've got an apartment. I'm starting to feel like I might have a base, which is really cool. The travel was important, but that was more to gain experience and get to know the different training styles in different camps and have that exposure to those different camps and different training methods, different coaches.
"I'm really happy with where I'm at right now and I'd like to get another good camp underway and show how I'm improving."
Peach Boxing coach Isaac Peach has called for the champion to be stripped of his titles.