Barlow to bring it to Buttabean

Che Barlow

Whanganui boxer Che Barlow is vowing not to make the same mistakes when he rematches against David Letele, aka Brown Buttabean, on the undercard of the Joseph Parker vs Andy Ruiz WBO title fight in two weeks.

Training at Hydra Boxing Academy in Eltham on Tuesday and Thursday's, Barlow and his trainers have dissected their unanimous points loss to Letele in Waitara on October 29, where Barlow went all-out attack on in the second round but lacked the energy to stay active in the final fourth round of the fight.

Duco Events scheduled a rematch for early on the card for the Vector Arena show.

"This is going to be epic. Don't miss," Letele posted about the fight on Facebook this week.

Having come from a Muay Thai kickboxing background before his professional boxing debut in Waiata, the Barlow camp felt he threw too many fast and therefore wasteful punches early-on in the previous meeting, and therefore did not retain enough cardio for the final exchanges.

The 40-year-old also had a bout of flu right before the fight, while being distracted by sorting out tickets for a large group of family and friends.

This time, his brother and manager Sonny Barlow said they were eliminating the distractions while focusing completely on specialist boxing training.

"It's a completely different gameplan from the last one. Everything's just sweet.

"He could put on weight if he wanted to.

"Now we've slowed him down, he's going to be a different fight.

"No more clinching, because what he didn't realise was how much reach [advantage] he's got," said Sonny Barlow.

"Over the next week, we've just got to get his mind focusing."

As well as Wanganui Toyota, the fighter has also secured sponsorship from Sport Whanganui and Q-West to cover his expenses for Auckland, with Sonny Barlow admitting his brother's boxing attire will have a very corporate logo look.

But that is understandable in front of 10,000 fight fans and a potential international television audience of 100 million people.