Boxing: David Tua travelling roadshow hits town

By Chris Rattue

David Tua stepped from the murky world of American boxing into a welcome from the people of his Samoan village at Auckland Airport yesterday.

Tua, who edged closer to his dream of fighting for the world heavyweight title when he knocked out Hasim Rahman, was greeted yesterday with song and dance as he touched down in Auckland for the first time in a year.

A touring sports group from Faleasiu, where Tua was raised before coming to Auckland when he was 11, delayed their departure so they could greet the contender.

Hours later, Tua - still wearing the tapa cloth shirt he arrived in - was perched at a press conference in a place well in keeping with the spirit of American boxing, the Auckland casino.

The questions that everyone wants answered though, remain unanswered.
Will Tua get a shot at the world title? When will it be? Just how good is the Terminator?

There was a genuine warmth to the reception Tua received at the airport. He was clapped and cheered, and an admiring Canadian tourist got the boxer to pose with her for a snapshot. That warmth has not been emanating from all directions, however.

One New Zealand sports commentator described boxing as "sick" if it rated Tua as the No 1 heavyweight contender. Tua's win over Rahman, he contended, was due to a late punch. And Rahman was the only decent fighter Tua had faced.

"Those sort of comments just make me more determined," Tua said yesterday. "I dream every day about becoming the heavyweight champion of the world - that keeps me going when you try to cross the pain barriers in the gym."

Despite the well-founded scepticism, there are factors in favour of Tua's dream.

This is hardly the era of Ali, Frazier, Norton and Foreman and the classy Holyfield is near the end.

New York Post columnist Wallace Matthews described it thus: "These are the darkest days for heavyweight boxing since the hot-potato era of the mid-1980s, when the likes of Tony Tubbs, Trevor Berbick, Pinklon Thomas, Greg Page and Michael Dokes passed the WBA belt back and forth as if it were a disease."

The New Jersey-based Tua also appears remarkably well-grounded, despite having to live far from friends and family in a country he accepts as his new home only because of his burning ambition to win that title.

There is a pretty deranged, self-destructive look to some of the other contenders, from the talented Andrew "Low Blow" Golota to the looniest of the loons, Mike Tyson.

And Tua can punch. His left hook is a winner and as the Rahman fight showed, all the carefully collected points in the world are no good if there's a man playing a loud drum inside your head and your legs have turned to jelly.

The typical comment from the myriad of observers in America, as Tua's own press releases accept, goes something like this: "You've got to consider Tua, because he's a great puncher."

But they usually come with warnings such as this from a former middleweight contender, Michael Olajide, who said: "A guy like David Tua is a good puncher, but he's the product of astute matchmaking, and I'm not sure what'll happen when someone shows him some angles."

Still, the International Boxing Digest once described him as "maybe the future of the division."

For now, getting that title shot, when he could earn maybe $US2 million to $3 million, is the key. His camp believe Rahman will have lodged an appeal this week against the tko decision in Miami, where Tua took the International Boxing
Federation intercontinental heavyweight crown.

Apart from that potential hiccup, fun and games lie ahead. If there is such a thing as a certainty in boxing, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis will fight for a unified title in March.

The WBA, represented by Henry Akinwande, have first crack at the title followed by the IBF's Tua. But describing boxing as a world of ifs and buts is a bit like saying Don King's got a bit of a curl to his hair.

Tua's adviser, Kevin Barry, concedes: "A title shot may not even happen in 1999 - who knows with the politics of boxing?"

For Tua, it means continuing with punishing daily training without knowing when his Holy Grail might arrive.

In the meantime, he looks set for a couple of fights to keep in shape and focused. One may be in New Zealand. Fellow New Zealand-Samoan Jimmy Thunder is even in the frame there. But knowing boxing, don't rule out the Pope or Richard Loe.

If and when his big chance comes, Tua's destiny will be decided by that left hook.

Tua, the shortest of contenders, will never beat the likes of Holyfield over the distance.

"When you step in the ring with David Tua, points don't matter," Tua said.

And his ambition, apart from THE title and the money he is gathering along the way? "I don't want to be loved. Just respected," he said.

Judging by the reception he received in Auckland yesterday, win or lose, there are plenty of people in New Zealand who will give a young man defiantly pursuing a daunting ambition both.

Pictured: David Tua arriving in Auckland yesterday. PICTURE / FOTOPRESS