KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's top kickboxer Jason Suttee has just resumed training after seven months recovering from an operation to fuse a bulging disc in his neck.
It was a condition that could have ended in paralysis had he been hit in the wrong place, but Suttee is nowraring to get back in the ring in competition and the problem has been pushed from his mind.
"If I don't get to fight, something in my life will be missing," said Suttee, 34, and betting that his best may yet be to come.
He is looking keenly at Dixon McIver's new KO world series and hopes to get chances there that were denied him in the Japanese K1.
Suttee was Kings of Oceania runner-up three times and should have progressed to "super fights" in the discipline but was overlooked, mainly because the Japanese regarded him as too small, he believes.
He admits opponents with greater height have been his nemesis as he put together a record of 78 fights for 65 wins, 11 losses and two draws.
At 183cm and around 100kg, he has never been shown up by opponents with up to 12cm more in height and reach and 30kg in weight.
But it means that, at heavyweight, he usually has to move inside the longer reach of bigger fighters and get hit in order to deliver his own damage.
"It's not ideal. After the first win, they told me I was too small.
"The second year, I asked to be put in the pool with the biggest fighters and beat two guys who were 120kg but I still didn't get through.
"In year three, I got beaten but I'd had five fights in total with the guy, two wins to me, two to him and a draw. I've beaten guys who got shots ahead of me.
"I've never heard from K1."
Suttee has about 200 kickboxers in training at his Elite Thai gym inPenrose.
He admits that after the time out he's not as sharp as he used to be.
"I'm getting hit more than I'm used to."
He's put on weight, his reactions have slowed and he feels it may take a year to get back to the condition he had before surgery.
But he's sure he has the ability to compete at world level.
"Top boxers hit their peak somewhere between 32 and 36 so I have time. And my brain is improving all the time."
He's had surgery on his left elbow once, the right twice and now the disc problem.
"The neck's solid. I'm just a bit rusty. It doesn't bother me, I don't think about it at all."
Competition is a nervous time for his partner, Arna Johnson, though.
"She can't talk during a fight, she has to sit by herself and watch. She gets quite nervous but she supports me. She knows I'm a happier person doing what I want to."
The other New Zealand fighters likely to feature at Sky City in the KO World Series opener in February are Andrew Peck at heavyweight and Prince Hamid and Simon "Spike" Chamberlain at middleweight.
