Boxing: Super-heavyweight spoiling for a fight

By PETER JESSUP

After much ado about politics, the Oceania boxing championships scheduled for May will go ahead this month.

A big New Zealand team will be led size-wise by "bigger-than-Jonah" super-heavyweight Paula Mataele.

At 198cm and 116kg, the West Auckland storeman-cum-doorman has trouble finding opponents and is looking forward to the Oceania tournament to give him some much-needed international exposure.

He has had only five opponents in the past 18 months, and that includes national championships bouts.

Asked if he reckoned other fighters were scared of him, Mataele said: "I don't know - probably."

He earned the trip to Fiji with a 90-second knockout of Lower Hutt's Ben Uitime in the final of the national championships in Taupo last month.

Mataele has no idea of the standard of competition he will meet in Fiji, but knows he needs all he can get if he is to achieve his aim of selection for the Manchester Commonwealth Games, then the Olympics and "world No 1".

Right now it is a hard slog fitting ring work four nights a week around fitness and strength training, a 40-hour-a-week job as a storeman on Auckland's waterfront, and three nights on the door at a Princes Wharf bar.

Mataele was one of many kids who were dabbling with the wrong side of the law before joining the Opetaia brothers at the Glen Eden Boxing Club.

New Zealand-born of Tongan descent, Mataele left Avondale College without too much aim in life and drifted towards alcohol and drugs before finding his purpose.

"I saw the light, got out of bad habits and now I have a huge opportunity," he said.

The Oceania tournament is the first step for all eight in the New Zealand team as they build for the Manchester Games.

Next comes the Commonwealth championships in Sri Lanka in January, then the Oceania tournament in Taupo in April, which will determine final Games selections.

The delays this year started when hosts Fiji bit back at Australian comments about the political situation in the islands.

Fiji banned the Australians, then said they would drop the tournament. The Fiji Government intervened and the country's boxing association relented, but the Australians said they would not go.

Now it is handshakes all round and the tournament is on from November 19.

New Zealand named nine fighters, but is now sending eight after featherweight Michael Newton pulled out for personal reasons.

The NZ Boxing Association has ranked its representatives by performance at the national championships in August, putting Feilding heavyweight Shane Cameron at No 1.

He won the Jamieson Belt, awarded since 1927 for the most scientific boxer, the first fighter above middleweight to do so.

The fighter Cameron beat in a unanimous points decision, Adam Forsyth from Whakatane but working in Perth, went from that tournament to the Australian championships in Sydney and won a points decision over Victorian champion Kane Wiscombe.

Forsyth cannot compete as an Australian at Fiji, but will be determined to get Cameron's New Zealand spot for Manchester.

Auckland light-middleweight Kahu Bentson, ranked No 2, and welterweight Daniel Codling, No 3, won gold medals at the Arafura Games at Darwin this year.

The team will be coached by Phil Shatford, one of five national coaches under director and former solo coach Dr John McKay.

Chairman Keith Walker said the five-way appointment appeared to be working well, with individuals able to concentrate on juniors, women, the elite squad or national teams as appointed by McKay.

They had been disappointed with results at international competition in recent years and needed change.

Walker expects the New Zealand team to do well in the heavier divisions and to face stiff competition in the lighter weights in Fiji.

"In some ways the delay has worked out well for us, putting the two Oceania competitions so close," he said, as the association was always short of cash to send fighters overseas.

NZ team to Oceania, as ranked by the NZBA:

Shane Cameron of Feilding, heavyweight; Kahu Bentson of Auckland, light-middleweight; Daniel Codling of Auckland, welterweight; Paula Mataele of Auckland, super-heavyweight; Keiran Foley of Auckland, lightweight; Soulan Pownceby of Auckland, middleweight; Daryl Lichtwark of Hamilton, light-heavyweight; Daniel Headfen of Wellington, light-welterweight.