Boxing: Fitness helps push Chris Cairns into ring

Simon Doull (left) and Chris Cairns ham it up at the TGA BOX Health and Fitness gym on Sunday. Photo/George Novak.

Former Black Caps allrounder Chris Cairns was back in Tauranga on Sunday promoting a boxing bout between himself and former teammate Simon Doull.

The unlikely arrangement between the two former teammates came about after a great deal of persistence from promoter Dean Lonergan and a burning desire by Cairns to regain his past fitness.

The 43-year-old Cairns, who played two seasons for Te Puke in his late teens and represented the Bay of Plenty under-18 side in 1987, admitted in an exclusive chat with the Bay of Plenty Times to losing 16kg in the build-up to his scrap with Doull at the Fight for Life in Waitakere on December 14.

"It is a bit different for me. I have always been a boxing enthusiast, but am I a fighter? Absolutely not," said Cairns.

"Mate, I will talk myself out of anything before I have to worry about using my fists.

"I will definitely be petrified but the training has been really good from a health point of view."