Boxing: A small fight to keep Tua ticking over for the big one

David Tua returns to the scene of his last fight victory tomorrow, taking on Kentucky heavyweight Russell Chasteen at the the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

The fight coincides with Hasim Rahman signing to meet the Aucklander early next year.

The winner will be guaranteed a shot at the IBF heavyweight title.

Tua's manager Kevin Barry admitted Rahman's signature was more exciting for Tua than tomorrow's fight, but the development would not distract the Samoan-born heavyweight from his immediate assignment.

"He's very focused on what's ahead of him because he knows he has to do well to justify the Rahman fight," Barry said yesterday.

Chasteen has a professional record of 19 wins, 13 by knockout, and five losses.

He is on a five-fight winning streak, including a 12-round points victory in his last bout when he captured a version of the American heavyweight title.

Barry said that although tomorrow's fight was merely to keep Tua active, the boxer was taking it "very seriously" after his consecutive knockout wins over the previously unbeaten Fres Oquendo and former world champion Michael Moorer.

"The thinking is to keep David busy in the gym, enabling him to stay in shape to keep his weight down while continuing under the new training regime," Barry said.

He said Rahman would be Tua's first opponent in the New Year - a year which he hoped would relaunch his boxer's world championship chances.

Tua, now rated in the top five by all the major boxing organisations, has a 41-3 professional record, including 36 wins by knockouts.

"Having nearly completed a seven-week training camp, David is in very good physical condition, with more than 50 rounds of sparring already boxed," Barry said.

"The focus of this camp has been to further increase David's explosiveness and work on combination punching to increase his output.

"The plan is to take care of business here and prepare for a huge year in 2003 that, providing David beats Rahman, will secure David a second challenge at the world heavyweight championship."

Tua beat Rahman on a 10th-round technical knockout after the American was hit after the bell while leading on points in December 1998.

After signing for the rematch, Rahman told a media conference: "The same thing is going on now that was going on when we fought the first time.

"He [Tua] knocked out Michael Moorer in 30 seconds, and he's been knocking all these guys out and everybody's on the Tua bandwagon.

"Well, you know what? I know his weakness.

"I'll knock him out. Tell the midget I'm coming to knock him out."

- NZPA