Boxing: New contract will put Tua in box seat for title shot

By PETER JESSUP

New Zealand heavyweight boxer David Tua is set to sign a multi-million dollar contract that will take him to a world title shot within the next 12 months.

The Samoa-born, Auckland-bred Tua now appears likely to get one of the next two challenges against undisputed three-belt champion Lennox Lewis.

Tua, training in Auckland as he considers his big future and takes the counsel of family, gained in the credibility stakes after the latest heavyweight contest, between lower-ranked contenders Michael Grant and Andrew Golota.

Golota, of Poland, knocked Grant down twice in round one of that fight and was ahead on points before he was himself sent sprawling then elected not to go on.

Lewis was ringside for that match in Atlantic City a week ago, as was Tua and his manager, Kevin Barry.

"[Lewis] will be thinking either of those guys would be an easy first-up," Barry said.

Tua was certainly not intimidated by anything he saw from either fighter.

"Grant's chin was shown up for a start," Barry said.

Lewis last week indicated that he would like to take on Mike Tyson first. That may be because Tyson has looked slow, out of condition and still unstable. His trainers cannot keep him off the candy and he would be a big-money fight and one Lewis would be confident in.

He would be less confident against Tua, now generally described on the industry circuit as "the very tough Kiwi."

If boxing authorities go back to rankings and contenders, as they may feel compelled to do under the glare of a congressional inquiry in the United States, ranked first would be Henry Akinwande.

Lewis has already beaten Akinwande and said he does not want to fight him again. Next is Ike Ibeabuchi, who is in jail facing a lengthy term for sexual assault.

The two really in the frame are Tua and Grant, in that order.

"Dave's in everyone's frame at the moment," said Barry, hedging on when a management deal will be signed and who with. But he agrees Tua "has to capitalise on where he is now, this is his time."

Barry expects the title shot within the next year, probably in Las Vegas or New York.

"It has to be, but whether [Lewis and his backers] would gamble on Dave's power first-up, I don't know," he said.

A Grant-Tua fight seems unlikely, as the pair, ranked fifth and sixth on the combined association lists, would be unlikely to want to risk their positions, and a fight between the two would bring either fighter 10 times the payday if one or other already had the newly combined titles.

Barry said Tua now looked unlikely to box again this year. He would not reveal who was in the running to sign Tua, but it is clear there is a great deal of interest from Grant's backers, HBO, Showtime, managers Main Events and America Presents, the only major United States promoter not in the picture being Don King.

There may be a pointer to Tua's likely direction in the fact that another of Barry's fighters, middleweight Maselino Masoe, is in training at the America Presents camp in Denver.

Masoe impressed with a two-minute, round-one knockout of 100-fight Mexican Martin Quiroz in his last fight in Miami and will box again on December 12 on the same card as fellow Kiwi Robbie Peden, who was live on Fox TV when he won a brutal contest in the fourth round last weekend.