Boxing: Older and wiser Tua gets the gloves back on

David Tua's fight in New York tonight is only his third in two years. Picture / Kenny Rodger

David Tua has suddenly taken a dislike to the word comeback.

He prefers to refer to tonight's fight in New York as his journey to boxing's pinnacle.

Whether he will ever get to the top remains to be seen, as he tries to recover from the nasty legal wrangle with his former management.

The contest with 40-year-old American journeyman Edward Gutierrez is just his third fight in two years.

"I prefer to call it a continuation of my tour of duty," Tua said while training at Central Boxing in Phoenix this week.

He calls his campaign Tua of Duty.

Tua's most recent fight was an unimpressive split decision over Cisse Salif in Florida last October.

Before that he required a 10th round knockout to put away Talmadge Griffis in Auckland last year.

He takes a 44-3-1 (38 by knockout) record into the Grand Ballroom ring in the Manhattan Centre against the ageing, anonymous Gutierrez's 15-2-1 (6 by knockout).

American promoters once regarded Tua as a boxer who was poised to put some fun back into the heavyweight division with his lethal left jab.

He entered the ring to the echoes of a conch shell and he was different and dangerous, they said.

But a quiet, serious businessman is evident in an older Tua, who at 33 is making an attempt at regaining some of the lost wealth that took him out of the ring and into the courts in a battle with his formers managers Kevin Barry and Martin Pugh.

"I actually think it's a good thing that he didn't fight for a couple of years," his new trainer, Roger Bloodworth, told the Arizona Republic newspaper.

"Because of everything that was going on, he just had no more interest in boxing. He'd had it. But the spark is back. We want to keep busy for three or more fights."

Cedric Kushner, who is promoting Tua's programme, is hoping the boxer can re-emerge as an entertaining threat who had lost on points to Lennox Lewis in a bid for the heavyweight title nearly six years ago.

The dormant heavyweights need all the help they can get, Kushner said.

Tua believes he's in a good shape for the fight.

"I always like to do the talking in the ring, I've worked pretty hard and my trainer's happy with what we've done."

- NZPA