Boxing: Tua steps up as true contender

By Peter Jessup

When David Tua lays his big, shaved head down to sleep at night, he dreams of two things: the undisputed heavyweight championship of the boxing world and taking his family out to dinner in his custom Chev convertible after he's won it.

Tua has been in Auckland for a month preparing for his next fight, a regular figure at Les Mills' gym at 6 am and Kevin Barry's ring next door later in the day, on pushbikes and in pools around west Auckland.

You would know if you saw him. At 235lbs he's about the biggest unit around and he's starting to look like what he is - a professional boxer - losing the boyish mean attitude for a more Mike Tyson-like silent menace.

But Tua isn't Tyson in any way. He's a personable, likeable guy who's grown up a lot mentally as well as physically as he heads towards the big paydays now he's a serious title contender.

He likes to help out at his folks' Mangere Pacific Island Church, will visit shopping centres and sign autographs for hours and is delaying the return to the United States for the run into the straight for his world title shot so he can support Barry's young fighters in a local contest.

Tua will be on the undercard when Mike Tyson fights former world champ cruiserweight Orlin Norris at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on October 23 and will have one more fight in December.

Don't expect to see much of him before what he and manager Kevin Barry hope will be his big run next year, culminating in a shot at the big thing Tua has been focused on for seven years.

The day for the pair of them starts at 5.30 am with a drive from Barry's west Auckland home to the inner-city gym.

Tua does the routine that's been honed by his years on the pro circuit, fine-tuned by the weights experts that train the All Blacks and others.

Barry repeats it, lightening the weights; there aren't too many people in the world who can raise the max on all the machines they build.

He follows his own routine now, avoiding the boredom that the endless gym work can bring.

Specific work on abs, calf muscles where the power punch left hook is launched, shoulders.

Then it's back home for porridge, lots of it, with little on it.

The size of Tua's meals still stuns Barry's wife Tanya, who has been preparing them for the past month.

"Kevin eats pretty well, but Davie?"

His lunchbox is a small suitcase filled with boiled, skinless chicken and potatoes, skin on, and filled with spiced rice, which is about as flavoursome as much of his food gets.

He doesn't mind, his mind set on one thing.

Tua has a firm belief he has a God-given talent that will see him hold the heavyweight belt.

He is not worried about when, setting the politics and "alphabet soup" of the various associations and the bizarre judgments in recent fights aside to concentrate on what he is doing.

"It's nice being here, seeing my family and settling in with Kev and Tanya. I'm thankful for the good team I've got around me. I'm training the way I want to fight now and I feel good - life is good."

Barry wants him to fight hard and fast, to destroy the two as yet unknown opponents he will face before the end of 1999.

Tua is happy with that, acknowledging he let past opponents Ike Ibeabuchi and Hasim Rahman take confidence from his slow starts.

He has met Evander Holyfield and has watched Lennox Lewis and will see the pair fight in November; neither worries him.

Barry points out that while Tua gives away height and reach against every other contender in the heavyweight division, he is hard to match in terms of power, speed, strength and durability.

"We all have God-given talents and this is mine," Tua said.

He doesn't like hurting people and certainly isn't into the bad-boy tactics Tyson and others produce. But he knows his job.

"The big guys come and try and bang away long distance. They used to look over my shoulder and think 'this guy will be easy'.

"I've earned some respect now and they don't do that but I still don't worry about fighting big guys. Once I hit them it all changes.

"They concentrate on defence, against me, they concentrate on the left hook. But I still get it in there."

Tua is more mature now, leaving the wheeling and dealing to Barry and unconcerned at purses, opponents, shenanigans in the rating of fighters, the size of the television audience or the fact he's on at the MGM Grand.

"The MGM is a building. What turns my lights on is coming home to see my family and friends."

He flies first class doing that now but still loves Mangere, where he grew up after the family shifted from Samoa when he was aged 11. "It's growing up, looking better."

As is Tua. Patient and confident.

"My time will come. It doesn't matter if someone else goes ahead of me with the WBC or WBA," said the IBF No 1 contender.

"The job for David Tua now is to be ready, to be prepared to do the best and make the best of the ability God and my family and Kevin have given me. I just have to be prepared."