Boxing: David Tua - Fistfuls of faith

At 15, David Tua was hanging out with street kids - then he woke up to his fighting chance. PETER JESSUP looks at the early years of boxing's star contender.

It's a big step for a boy from a tiny Pacific atoll to compete for the premier prize in sport but David Tua has no worries, no pretensions, no doubts about his chance of taking boxing's world heavyweight title.

He'll win the two world title belts from Briton Lennox Lewis in November because it's his destiny, Tua believes. "Have Faith," reads the slogan on the jackets and T-shirts worn by the Tuaman's team.

It's the island background from his hometown of Faleatiu and the childhood upbringing in South Auckland that keeps Tua's feet firmly planted as he lines up Lennox Lewis, the fight carrying a pay-cheque guaranteed to exceed $US4 million ($9.68 million), the event sure to stop this country and blitz all television viewer records.

Tua always enjoys two homecomings when back from the United States after his fights, one to Auckland and the second to Samoa. Mixing with ordinary people - his relatives, the boxers with whom he grew up and trained, the crowd at the Manukau mall - is all part of what keeps Tua clean, focused, realistic.

He bikes around the streets of Mangere and Otahuhu where he grew up and is impressed with the changes, how the state houses have been tidied up with gardens, how the council has planted trees, removed tagging from the bus shelters. "It's changing for the better. I ride around there and it seems like yesterday I was a kid riding my bike there. It keeps me honest."

Tua was the middle son of a family of eight children, four of each, born to Noela and Tuavale Lio Mafaufau Sanerivi. His dad owned a small shop and ruled it strictly. He was a boxer of better than average ability and on Saturdays local men would arrive to fight "friendlies" that still carried plenty of likelihood for damage.

Tuavale recognised the potential his son had at an early age and would set him against bigger opponents. "I had no choice - once he called, you had to go. He sensed something special in me and he wanted me to be prepared, to teach me respect for my opponent."

When Tua was 10 his dad made a trip from Samoa to Porirua to visit his parents, and decided New Zealand was the place to give his children opportunity. The family moved to Mangere, young David went to Bader Drive Intermediate then Otahuhu Intermediate when they moved. He went to Otahuhu College, enjoyed the socialising, and "thought about studying but didn't do much."

He played rugby but team sports weren't for him. When his side was down a few points, on attack and with a few minutes left, the coach instructed the halfback to run a set play. Tua told the halfback to give him the ball. The halfback said the coach would kill him if he didn't run the play. Tua responded he'd kill him, too, if he didn't get the ball and he was closer than the coach. He got the ball and scored but the team and he parted company. By 15, he was hanging with street kids and walking that knife-edge that sends some to jail.

Tuavale resurrected the boxing. Older brother Andrew also had some talent and was coached at the Otahuhu Community Centre under George Cammick, who had Monty Betham, and David was dragged along.

He established an early reputation for knockouts and at 18 was named as part of the New Zealand team to an Oceania qualifying tournament for the Barcelona Olympics. It was there, fighting back in Samoa, that he woke up to what was in front of him.

"I discovered what my dad had been saying. He'd told us all to put our hearts in whatever we did. That stuck with me and now I think if I'm not enjoying it and I don't want to train I might as well go and do something else." For eight years now he hasn't wanted to do anything other than prepare himself for what he sees as a simple stroke of destiny, his winning in Las Vegas in November with a huge knockout punch that will rock his world.

First step was bronze in Barcelona. His dad had told him, "You do your best then turn pro."

"I was 19 and I thought it was too early. He told me I wasn't going to be young forever." There were offers on the table from pro promoters in the crowd in Spain but Tua elected to stay with Los Angeles Olympian Kevin Barry, so beginning a happy partnership that has had the pair living out of each other's pockets ever since.

Tua has until recently stayed with the Barry family, Kevin's wife Tanya and daughter Jordyn (7) and twin boys Taylor and Mitchell (5), while training. Tanya used to prepare individual plastic containers of David's food - breakfast, post-training morning snack, lunch, post-afternoon training snack, dinner, supper, in measured amounts of skinless chicken, fish, salads, pastas. "The routine, the family life, it keeps me on the straight and narrow," he said.

Now, after signing with one of the world's biggest boxing promoters in America Presents, he has his own central city rooftop apartment and a nutritional expert to prepare his meals. The routine is largely the same, though. Train, play guitar, write poetry and lyrics, listen to music from church chorals to Otara hip-hop, play checkers, train some more. He describes it as "the same-old, same-old." But always in the back of his mind is resolution of the dream, KO-ing Lennox Lewis, hearing the announcer drawl out, "And the NEW heavyweight champion of the world ... "

Helping him to that will be the whole Samoan nation, beaming psychic power across the Pacific. On his latest visit home Tua was feted in the island nation, Government and church ministers promising support, every Samoan to wear ceremonial beads, ula fala, in the week preceding the fight. Tua is beamingly proud of that.

"That was a big deal for me because of the love and respect I have for my heritage. It's a very sacred thing for me, it brings out the inner strength."

Also a big deal was spending time with his grandparents. His granddad's take on it, as shown on Tagata Pasifika, was, "So, you're fighting that black man [Lewis]." After agreeing he'd pray for a win, his granddad asked, "Where's your mother? I need some shoes."

And again it's that everyday approach that touches him and makes him swear in the biblical sense - because he doesn't use swear words - that he'll always be David Tua, that he will still spend time in Samoa and live in South Auckland, regardless of the outcome in November and how much money he might make then and afterwards.

"You have to be yourself, money and fame don't make the man. If I had a big house in Remuera, so what? I'd go to Remuera and be blocked inside a huge house in a place where the neighbours wouldn't speak to you. That's what I like about Samoa and South Auckland. There are no fences, no boundaries, my heart is in those places and I'm happy there. I was brought up happy there and that's hard to leave. It was a loving, caring home - a hard kind of love but all worth it."

Huge respect remains for his parents. "Whatever I achieve will never be enough to pay them back. If my parents hadn't done their job properly I wouldn't be here now."

The only bone of contention is his haircut, which Tuavale hates. "I'm going to see him today, I have to get some gel to hold it down." He contemplated wearing a cap, on one recent visit. "I'm not going to get it cut but it's his house and I have to respect him in his house."

When the money started coming in Tua provided for the family, asking his father to give up the working-class jobs he'd supported them with. He returned from a States fight to find Tuavale had bought himself a $50 trailer and was collecting newspaper for recycling, pride unable to let him sit home without contributing. Tua went out and bought his dad the business, now called the Papermen Ltd, his brothers driving the collection trucks.

There are some other early signs of non-South Auckland wealth, new diamond-studded earrings, a thick gold neck chain, the Mercedes that was stolen when he left the keys in it while going into a dairy for gum, a Ferrari Lotus and what he hopes will be a growing collection of old yank tanks, a 1955 Chev blue flame and a 66 Impala.

Ask about wealth and he has a ready patter: "When you drink the water remember the man who dug the well," he says. "So I respect all those that some would call the little people. I don't believe there are any little people. Everyone has a God-given talent and it's a matter of making the best of it."

He remains connected to a congregational Christian church in South Auckland. "God put me into something I'm good at," is his reply to any questions about hurting people.

Out of the ring Tua is quietly spoken, happy to sign autographs and have his picture taken with fans in a way Lewis, Tyson and others wouldn't dream of. He watches the antics of the likes of Tyson and the only man to beat him in 37 fights as a pro, Nigerian Ike Ibeabuchi, locked up after molesting a room-service girl, and learns. "They're missing something as a human being, they're not a complete person. I'm at peace with myself."

So he'll go into the ring in Las Vegas on November 12 (NZT) serene and quietly confident, knowing he's done the preparation work with no shortcuts, not overawed by people's awe of him or by the occasion.

All pre-fight talk is of Lewis' greater height and reach, of how Tua will have to get past his points-scoring jab and go inside the extra 14cm Lewis has in armspan in order to land his killer left hook or the uppercut that has won his past two bouts. Tua knows that if the fight goes 12 rounds Lewis will more than likely have won because judges don't easily overturn the champ. He's planning to take the fight to Lewis and knock him out. "I'm not worried about him. It may not be pretty and it may not be perfect but I'm just going to fight, do whatever he does better than he's doing it.

"I'll be all right, I'm looking forward to it. I'll be happy regardless of the outcome. We all want to be winners but there can only be one winner. You have to accept that and be happy that you know you've done your best. I don't believe in regrets."