Boxing: Commonwealth Games throws up mis-matches

At the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, a massive super-heavyweight boxer moved quickly to the centre of the ring. His opponent, dwarfed by his oncoming foe, wisely moved back. He spent the rest of the fight in reverse, unsuccessfully trying to avoid gloves the size of watermelons. It was like watching the Air New Zealand building versus Pooh Bear.

The big man was Lennox Lewis, then fighting for Canada, and he went on to fashion one of the best professional heavyweight records of the modern era. The other was a Welsh lad called Aneurin Evans. He went on to be the faintest of forgotten footnotes in boxing. To say it was a one-sided final is like saying Everest is a big rock. It was also pretty dull as Lewis, even then, had developed his habit of doing enough to win but not really capturing hearts and minds with his style.

You might be wondering what all this has to do with Greg Weenink, New Zealand's super-heavyweight hope at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. It's really to do with the huge variance that can apply at Commonwealth Games or, rather, which has applied in the past.

You get your world champions, like Lewis, mixing it with your unknowns and never-will-be knowns like Evans - who can at least stand in his local pub with a pint of Brains SA and truthfully say that the champ never knocked him out. Couldn't catch him or, knowing Lewis' style a little, didn't need to.

Weenink is not a big super-heavy. Not that 100kg is small but in the vast land of super-heavies, that ain't big. He is not well-known. He's a deal older than most of the young hopefuls you find in the Evans role at Commonwealth Games (he's 31) and he's only had 20 fights at the time of writing.

So why are we committing a few trees and ink to write about him? Because, as Weenink himself puts it with a bit of a heavyweight stare: "Boxing is all about the unexpected."

So it is, although Weenink is about as far removed from the hyperbolic side of boxing - Don King, press conferences, ranting build-ups of ordinary fights, weigh-ins, the music, the smoke, the smoke and mirrors, the money, always the money - as it is possible to be.

This is amateur boxing and Weenink, a truck driver from Wellington, remains firmly comfortable with anonymity. "I don't want to be well known," he said. "I'm happy they don't know much about me."

Yet Weenink is a chance at Melbourne for three main reasons - first, he has fought extremely well out of New Zealand and has done particularly well against the top Australians; second, he is a scientific boxer with a good jab, important as that is a good points-scorer in boxing; and third, the super-heavyweight division usually has fewer fighters than other divisions. In Lennox Lewis' year, 1986, there were only four other boxers.

There will be way more than that at Melbourne and the quality will be up, too - the Africans, Canadians and English will all be difficult and Weenink has respect for the Indian boxing team as he suffered one of his rare losses overseas to an Indian fighter at the Commonwealth Cup tournament in Glasgow last year. The Indians made six finals and won four golds, perhaps courtesy of a new Cuban coach.

There is another dimension. The super-heavyweight division is often among the least predictable. Put it down to the physiology of the big men.

"When you're big, it's hard to stay fit," said Weenink. "It's tough, there's a lot of work to do and you have to do it - and then you have to learn about boxing, the craft of boxing. And then it's a matter of what happens on the night."

Most who have seen Weenink fight say he is still learning but is doing so quickly. He is not a "big banger" but scores well with his jab, piling up points that opponents find hard to pull back. Even in his rare losses, as in Glasgow, the margins are slim.

His style suits the changes that have occurred in boxing, notably the shift to computer judging. That helps remove the human error - and worse - from boxing judging and has also allowed a move away from scoring being based on the boxer moving forwards. Previously, the aggressor usually scored more points than the boxer moving backwards, overlooking the science of a boxer who could defend and counter.

Add to that Weenink's wins in the Arafura Cup in Darwin - he beat leading Australian Steve Rudic - and in the NSW championships, the Oceania championships (he beat Rudic again), the Perth championship, defeating Perth champion Corey Pollard, and his silver at Glasgow and Weenink's star is beginning to burn a little brighter.

Last weekend, at a practice tournament against Tonga, Weenink comfortably held off a 125-kg opponent, winning on points. His one blemish was at the New Zealand nationals where he was beaten on what he said was an off-day.

None of this persuades Weenink, a careful man, to talk about himself as a medal chance. "I've done OK, particularly last year, but I never underestimate anyone. Not in boxing. Boxing is about the unexpected."

The boxing camp are a bit nervy on the whole. The team again includes Soulan Pownceby, whose selection for the Athens Olympics created a stir and a moral debate because of his jailing for the killing of his infant daughter. Pownceby, a strong medal hope in Melbourne, fell to a former team-mate in the same Tongan tournament last week. He was beaten on points by Mokai Paraha, formerly a heavyweight who was not selected by New Zealand and has now joined the Tongan camp, dropping down to light-heavyweight.

Although Pownceby knocked Paraha down, he lost the bout on points - more controversy as Paraha is now trained by Paea Wolfgramm, the giant super-heavy who won silver in Sydney for Tonga after being rejected by the New Zealand boxing selectors. The storm that rained down on boxing's heads after Pownceby's selection last year has led to some small worries about media contact this time.

Weenink's success so far is also unusual because it is his second start in the sport. Boxing has a high drop-out rate - the work and fitness regimes often prove too much - and he gave it away at 18. When asked why, he looks wary for a moment and says: "Look, I don't want this to read as though I'm critical of New Zealand boxing or anything... but what happened was that I went for a fight and there was something wrong with my registration and I couldn't fight. We could have pulled some strings and I could have fought but for various reasons it didn't happen."

The teenaged Weenink decided that all his training and no fighting was for the birds, so he departed for more leisurely pursuits.

"I am not saying this is me," he is being careful again, "but a lot of boxers get out there and discover booze and women and really start having a social life when they haven't had much of one before. I didn't do much, really, just rode some motorbikes [he is a road bike and trail bike fan] and worked."

He didn't return to boxing until he was 26 - and until he weighed 120kg - when a friend was boxing at the local gym and he tagged along.

It's clear the struggle to get the excess weight off and the conditioning needed to fight were hard won.

His first fight, in 2000 when he was still overweight, is strong in his mind. "It was hard, mate, very hard. I am a big bloke and I have a slow metabolism. That means you have to work hard to get the weight off and keep it off. In that first fight, I had the sort of feeling not many people ever have. I was just fighting for air, really doing it hard."

But he felt enough of a stirring for the sport that he wanted to carry on and he developed the work ethic that has served him well since. The rewards started to flow in 2005.

And now it's to Melbourne where Weenink is a dark horse for a medal.

He won't tell you that. But he is.


- HERALD ON SUNDAY