KEY POINTS:
Boxing's contribution to movies is legendary, a subject made for dramatic exploration and done exceptionally well more often than not.
Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby, even Sylvester Stallone's long Rocky road.
Boxing is where men in the main, although also a young woman in
the Eastwood classic, overcome the odds, beat the demons, the fears, get back up off the canvas.
Well into an interview with David Tua, the one-time Kiwi world heavyweight title contender, the subject of boxing movies comes up.
"I really love Cinderella Man - that's exactly what we've been going through," says Tua, his George Foreman-ish figure upright in an overly soft chair at his Onehunga gym.
It's not only the sofas that lack a sharply defined shape. The 36-year-old Tua's physique is no longer the one which turned up for a world title fight against Lennox Lewis at Las Vegas in November 2000 (see video).
Tuaman, as he seems to be known now, was once the Terminator. Having knocked out 44 of 53 opponents, often inside a couple of rounds, it was a well-deserved title.
Those fearsome biceps which put opponents to sleep are now pillow-like, and in need of serious work. And work, Tua says, is what they are going to get.
Having just signed the contract for a much anticipated fight against his fellow Kiwi Shane Cameron, Tua is about to embark on what he hopes will be the comeback of comebacks, one that will take care of Cameron and then unfinished business in America.
The odds on another shot at the world title at this stage are not good, let's be realistic. As for winning it...
But then they would have said that about James Braddock, the subject of Cinderella Man, who fought back from the dole queue, depression over a failing boxing career and a severe hand injury to take the world title against a heavily favoured Max Baer in the 1930s. Braddock was only in the ring on that occasion as a fall guy, yet stunned the sports world.
For Tua, the story so far contains no such fairytale.
Tua's hair stood up to a memorable level when he fought Lewis, but Tua did not. A tall and clever heavyweight champion was hardly tested by the stocky South Aucklander of Samoan heritage. Tua could only shimmy his way through the bout, perhaps affected, in confidence at least, by a rib injury suffered in sparring two weeks earlier. The scorecards were a formality.
What has followed is straight out of a classic boxing script.
Tua is open, welcoming and relaxed as we talk but the bitter battle that has dominated his life flows easily into the conversation.
Nearly six years ago, he began a long, acrimonious and still unresolved legal battle with his old management team which included Kevin Barry, a man once portrayed as a father figure to Tua as he made his way in America's shark-infested boxing waters.
After failing to take his chances in a draw against the highly rated Hasim Rahman in March 2003, an IBF elimination bout, Tua was sidelined for exactly two years by managerial problems and has barely recovered.
A man who won millions in boxing purses is still unable to pull the release strings, as the see-saw court battle lingers on.
Tua is having to get on with life, and it hasn't been easy.
We meet in what may become his home away from home over the coming months, a little gym in the shadow of a cut-price clothing mall. Having decided on a comeback in 2005, Tua spotted a vacant building while driving around Onehunga with his brother, then "pretty much begged" for the equipment to fill it.
Boxing gyms are always fascinating places, but Tua's is more a sanctuary than a hive of activity when the Herald visits. He helps a few young fighters there, but Tua was on his lonesome initially on this sunny morning.
The gym is plainly painted in black on the outside, and neat if gloomy inside. Behind the ring, you can just make out the gleam of the black Mercedes that Tua drove in his hey day, but which is permanently parked while finances are tight.
Tua and his wife Robina, with their boys Klein (13) and Kaynan (10), live in a rented house in Pakuranga. Tua was raised in South Auckland, but his mother's family come from the eastern side.
"It's a great area and the schools are awesome which is very important," he says.
"Financially it is still very tough. Everything is all tied up and what I have gone through, I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
"How I've been able to stay strong, to not go crazy? The support of my parents and my wife's family, my wife of course, and great friends.
"This is the sixth year [of the wrangle] and my money is still frozen. At one stage the judge said whatever an independent appointed accountant says is yours - there is no reason why the court should hold on to that. I thought fantastic, I will be able to pay back the people we owe money to and hopefully have some spare.
"Then we went back to court and the judge said no. Everything that has been accumulated sits in a trust account, just sits there until things are sorted."
Does he believe at least some of the money will get into his bank account?
After a pause, he says: "I hope so, I really hope so, but the most important thing for me is that I have to move on with my life.
"It's been very difficult, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally.
"But I'm glad it happened because I can look at this whole thing and see a bright side. I believe I could have lost my identity without knowing it.
"So the way things are, it's awesome that I have gone back to where it all started. If I have to approach my sport again from the basics then that's what I will do.
"But it's been really tough, very tough. Some days, to be honest, and I don't want people to feel sorry for me, we don't know what we are going to do for food for the next two or three days. It's that bad."
Tua has publicly admitted that his marriage became strained during these emotionally crippling times but says his family is still strong.
Robina is the breadwinner, working for the New Zealand Institute of Sport. Tua playfully describes how he has adjusted to the role of a homemaker and caregiver.
"I've been learning how to cook - I've burned the meal a couple of times. I cook, I do the washing, I do the housework. I annoy the boys. "I walked them to school and they say 'don't walk us to school. So I suggested I walk on the other side of the road, or ride my bike next to them. They said 'no father rides their bike right next to their kids walking to school'.
"I guess they feel they are independent. But I play games with them. We walk the street and I hold their hands and they say 'man, people are looking - don't do that'."
Tua does a delicate, limp-wristed impression of how he hangs out the washing, and says a neighbour who had watched him wielding the pegs finally made contact.
"Are you, are you?" she asked, punching the air.
Tua says: "I said to her 'just keep it between us. It's not a good look. Don't tell the people'."
The chores though have been interrupted by Shane Cameron.
The Mountain Warrior has repeatedly "called me out" as Tua puts it, trying to goad a reluctant Tua into signing for a fight.
An old contact of Tua's from previous promotional work, Greg McCalman, put the idea to him again late last year and this time, the idle talk was no more. Tua and Cameron will meet in the ring on June 6, in either Auckland or Wellington.
While they've never sat down for a chat, Tua and Cameron have been within nodding distance. And more.
After Cameron lost to Friday Ahunanya in Auckland, late 2007, Tua sent him a text.
"Even though he had been calling me out, I texted him and said 'hey bro, that's boxing, you win some you lose some, as fighters it's not whether you get knocked down but hey, the question is are you going to get back up'. I told him his journey had just started.
"I think he was shocked. He texted back and said 'Who is this?'.
"I just said 'It's Tuaman.' He said 'Thanks bro'.
"I'm not going to lose sleep over what he has said about me. After one of the fights he said 'Stop running Tua, what are you running away for, you scared? Stop running'."
"Yeah, it did get to me a little but I can understand it because the psyche of boxing is like everything else. You do whatever you have to do to make things happen."
On another occasion, Tua paid Cameron a cheeky pre-fight visit by pretending he had wandered into the wrong dressing room.
"I've never talked to him one on one. I have a lot of respect for him and he is one of the hardest working fighters I have seen. I have a lot of respect for his heart - he is the Mountain Warrior and he comes to fight."
However in the same breath, Tua also mentions that a world ranking based largely on fighting in New Zealand - as Cameron has done - is not entirely credible.
Having shunned a Cameron fight previously, Tua grabbed the chance to re-launch his career this time, and in the process score a guaranteed $500,000 pay day.
His motivations spill out.
"There was nothing to prove before but things are different now. While I've been inactive he's been winning, done well, got a name and is a fighter I believe who has got the respect of the public here. And he's ranked. If I am to have another serious run at boxing, I need to fight this guy, I need to beat this guy.
"It's not just about the event itself but about the people who paved the way for me. Alex Sua, Jim "Tuna" Scanlon, Monty Betham - they fought in the days when you came from Samoa and if you did well, you'd go to Australia, then maybe England and then that might get you to the mecca of boxing. You did all that just to get to America.
"I believe what I've achieved can allow fighters after me to make a direct line to America rather than all those stops. I say to young fighters, don't be like me, be better than me.
"The ultimate goal, the bigger picture, is to be blessed with another opportunity to fight for the world title.
"Then, in four or five years time if I do decide to walk away, I can hold my head high and say I gave it my best shot. The greatest thing is I'm going to give it another go.
"If all goes well and things click, I believe this fight preparation will set me up for the next four years. I really believe that.
"I've got a very small time limit in this whole thing and this is the launching pad.
"Although I haven't fought for a long time my passion and love for this sport is still there. What I have been through has brought me to a good place, and I can describe this journey as one of peaceful brutality.
"It's about looking in the mirror and asking yourself deep questions. What's deep in your soul?
"Are you doing it for other people or for yourself, are you lying to yourself. I've determined that apart from the great opportunity I had of buying my parents a house, I went to the States in the first place because I love boxing, because I was born to do this.
"People ask me what it is like walking down to the ring on the day of a fight. Everybody is different, but for me the day of a fight is like it is on the last day for a condemned man on death row.
"You've got trainers on both sides, like the guards, taking you down. A 500-metre walk becomes like a two-mile walk. So many things are revealed about yourself.
"It's not like rugby where you can say, hey man, take my spot. When they let you in through the ropes, it's like the guy being strapped down.
"Then you are in the ring and reality kicks in - man I'm going to fight for my life. This is where all the hard work comes in and yet it could end, smack, just like that. It is very addictive. I live for moments like that."
The Lewis fight might always niggle away at him deep inside because he performed way below his best, although Tua says he has come to terms with it.
It was only last year that he was able to sit down, with a journalist mate, and watch the fight from go to whoa. He needed to see what happened during his tumble in the gambling jungle.
"Actually, my conclusion was you haven't done too bad for a dishwasher," he says.
For now, Tua is operating without a manager, although the American promoter Cedric Kushner is in his corner.
Old training allies, American Roger Bloodwater and Lee Parore, will guide his campaign. Linking with Bloodwater, whom Tua first met when part of the Duva Main Events camp, means he may train in America for the Cameron fight.
Ahh. America. Because that's what it is all about, you sense.
For all of its downsides, American boxing is a fascinating world.
Not many of us can tell first hand Don King stories - Tua even manages to laugh at himself for his famous TV gameshow gaffe of requesting "O for awesome" as he describes the infamous impresario's way with words.
At my prompting, Tua recalls other characters from the American gyms, with their dangling, glittering chains and inappropriate, flashy boxing attire. He probably qualified as one of them, teased up hair and all, for a while.
If Tua should beat Cameron, then America may call again, and it will be back to the mecca of boxing with its million-dollar maybes.
For every James Braddock, there are battered hopefuls forever trying to get back up off the canvas.
"I guess those days are gone. I lived it, I enjoyed it," he says wistfully, after recounting one of his anecdotes.
Gone? Perhaps not, if he wants another title shot.
Becoming a heavyweight contender is as beguiling as sport gets. If David Tua did return to America, you wonder how his identity would survive this time, and what he would really find there.
