Boxing: Tua takes no notice of Lewis' advantage

By PETER JESSUP

LAS VEGAS - The pre-fight talk is focused on the height and reach advantage Lennox Lewis will enjoy against David Tua in their world heavyweight title bout next weekend, but Tua is dismissing it

The two world heavyweight combatants have crossed paths briefly just the once, when both went to the venue, the Mandalay Bay Casino, to do interviews for broadcaster Home Box Office. Tua's camp were gratified the Samoan South Aucklander was given the respect they believe he has earned.

Lewis gave Tua a chopping salute across the room as acknowledgement. Each fighter's camp watched promo video of previous bouts, cheering from opposite sides of the room as the knockouts came.

Then Lewis told the HBO interviewer Tua was not in his class, had never been hit as hard as he would be on Sunday afternoon (NZ time), that he was going to give Tua a haircut.

"He shouldn't oughta have said that," Tua said from under his stand-up hairdo.

Tua remains supremely confident of a knockout and is in the best possible shape mentally and physically to enjoy that. He will complete sparring today, and moves from his Prince Ranch camp outside Las Vegas to the Mandalay Bay on Thursday, with the weigh-in on Friday.

Tua has been bashing up sparring partners Greg Pickrom and James Gaines in his last sessions, asking them to deliver the punches he expects from the taller champ.

His diet is down to porridge and fruit for breakfast, chicken - with nothing - for all other meals. There are no sugars, fats, salts, and no carbohydrates. The only variety is a vitamin shake mixed with 16 egg whites.

The result is very low body fat, no gut, no loose flab, just hardened muscle. After weigh-in, where Tua is expected to come in between 235 and 238 pounds and Lewis about 10 pounds heavier, he will be fed up on sugars to give that muscle the energy he will need on fight day.

Yesterday, a rest day, Tua was with Samoan cousins organising and practising the Samoan drum beat by which he will enter the ring. He has spent much time studying Samoan history and has resurrected ancient words and rhythms.

Tua will be announced by a call on a conch shell, foafoa, and his cousins will then issue a call for warriors to come out and defend their homeland and ask for help from warrior ancestors.

He will enter the ring wearing the traditional lava lava and war beads, ula fala, which all Samoans have been pressed to wear on fight day. The Samoan wood drums, pake, will be backed by a base drum.

The fight promoters sent an entertainment events expert to ask Tua how he would like to be introduced, suggesting all manner of high-powered entrances, including his being carried into the ring on a platter heaved by warriors.

"I was flattered, but I told them that while I respected their work, I wanted to keep things simple, to keep it me," he said, thumping his chest.

"When I go into the ring I want to feel my feet on the ground."

The Tua camp are pleased with the appointment of Joe Cortez as fight referee.

He is probably the most experienced man available, and comes with a reputation for quickly breaking up any holding, hugging and smothering, which everyone expects from Lewis.

Herald Online feature: Tua v Lewis

The Herald Online is ringside for the countdown to David Tua's tilt at the world heavyweight boxing title. Reporter Peter Jessup and photographer Kenny Rodger bring you all the news, inside information and pictures, leading up to this Sunday afternoon's showdown in Las Vegas.

* Be sure to get your full-colour poster of the two fighters in the print edition of the Herald on Friday November 10.