Boxing: Hyperbole must bow to reality in ring

Backers of Shane Cameron say he is a dead cert to win against an over-light David Tua, but Tua is the hot favourite. Photo / Dean Purcell

So just how big a deal is the Tua-Cameron fight?

If the promoters of both camps are to be believed, the answer is somewhere between huge and an event that will block out the sun for at least the next 12 months.

Sure, their hyperbolic offerings need to be taken with a heaped tablespoon of salt, but both Tua's promoter Cedric Kushner and Cameron's matchmaker Sampson Lewkowicz are keen to put their mouths and their men where the money is.

Both claim their guy is now just a few rounds away from a world title fight - and veteran fight caller Colonel Bob Sheridan agrees.

"Professional boxing is about money and this is the opportunity of a lifetime," Sheridan said.

"The ramifications of this fight are huge. Whether it is simply as an opponent or somebody that can genuinely win the title, the reality is that when you fight for the world title there are going to be millions of dollars involved."

Sheridan, it must be said, has been flown in by promoters Duco to be the voice of the fight, so he would hardly talk it down. Even so, it's hard to argue against the fact that the winner's prospects will be significantly more enhanced than the loser's.

Kushner opened a pre-fight verbal sparring session with Lewkowicz with a missive about Tua's superior marketability in America.

Clearly not one to mess about with jabs, Lewkowicz responded with a haymaker, guaranteeing Cameron would fight for a world title next year.

"This fight will make the winner the biggest commodity in the heavyweight division," said Lewkowicz, who prefaced his comments by declaring himself the man who discovered Manny Pacquiao - the Filipino tyro many rate as the greatest pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.

"I [make] the impossible happen," he said. "I can tell you now that Shane Cameron will fight for the world title in 2010."

Bold words. Kushner didn't quite pour scorn on them, but he maintained his man was the one in the box seat to take advantage of out-boxing his opponent in Hamilton tomorrow night.

"I believe you could call this fight, without hesitation, a world championship eliminator," Kushner said.

But while the loser will be eliminated, Kushner's view is that only a Tua victory would guarantee a world title shot in the near future.

"If you study the top 10 in all the sanctioning bodies, particularly from an American standpoint, you barely are familiar with any of the names. They are all eastern Europeans," he said.

"The point is that if David wins the fight he will get the chance to fight for the world championship because he is well known. I don't believe that would be the case with Shane.

"With all due respect to my counterpart Mr Lewkowicz, because of David's popularity in America and his terrific, exciting fighting style, he would be sought after. In the case of Shane, in the event he wins he would be eligible to fight [for the title] but that doesn't make him automatically well known.

"He won't have the notoriety. I've got friends who are big boxing fans and I've told them I am going down to New Zealand for David to meet Shane Cameron - they don't even know who he is.

"You don't become an overnight sensation by beating David Tua, you become credible."

Lewkowicz wouldn't be drawn on Tua's prospects. Such discussion was irrelevant as Cameron would have little trouble dispatching a David Tua who has lost so much weight he is literally a shadow of his former self, he said.

"First of all [Tua] needs to win - and that is the problem - I don't believe he will win," Lewkowicz said.

"I know boxing and I know Shane Cameron and David Tua. David Tua at this weight, 220lb (99.7kg), is not the same as the old David Tua who I loved. He is too light. I believe he over-trained, is over-excited and he will lose the fight.

"That is part of the reason. The other part is Shane Cameron. People say he has never fought anyone, but I can name many champions who had never fought anyone but who went on to become great champions.

"Any time that somebody says they have the new David Tua or the new Joe Blow, it doesn't mean that they have improved. He is a great fighter. But he was one of the best punchers ever in boxing. So if you change him to the new [Tua], I prefer the old one."

That sort of bullish talk has been emanating from the Cameron camp for months.

The swathe of destruction Tua cut through the heavyweight division in the 1990s and the early part of this century coupled with Cameron's vastly inferior record have seen the Throwin' Samoan installed as a hot favourite.

But Cameron's manager, Ken Reinsfield, said Tua's record meant nothing. The fighters Tua beat in his heyday - Hasim Rahman, Oleg Maskaev, John Ruiz - and even those who beat him such as Lennox Lewis and Chris Byrd, were all washed up and had either retired or were now being beaten up.

"You just need to look through and see where those guys are now," Reinsfield said. "None of them hold world titles and they are all being beaten. It is not me just saying it, it is fact."

Cameron was super-confident for a reason, Reinsfield said. "Confidence comes with a lot of things. It comes with knowing you have done the work. If you are not fit, if you haven't done the hard work in the gym and if you haven't done the rounds, you are not confident. We have done all of those things.

"People in New Zealand are yet to realise how good he is. They'll find that out."

Whatever the future may hold, it will be the farthest thing from both fighters' minds when they step into the ring at 10.30 tomorrow night.

As Kushner said, "The result of the fight is the only relevant thing now."