By Cliff Rold

This Saturday night in New Zealand, Samoan banger David Tua returns to the ring for the first time in two years.  He’ll face native puncher Shane Cameron (23-1, 20 KO) in what will be a big event in the land of “Flight of the Concords.”  Cameron is 31.

David Tua is 36 years old. 

Before the year is out, the calendar will turn to 37.  Either number is getting up there for an athlete, despite recent evidence to the contrary in boxing.  Either number, for an athlete, is old.  It’s a concept which causes a scratch of the head. 

When did David Tua get old?

It doesn’t feel like he should be yet.  There was once so much promise and yet, since losing in his lone title shot in 2000, there have been only fourteen fights.  In a Heavyweight decade which has often felt like a race to the bottom, a contest for greater tedium, Tua was the sort of fighter who could have kept things more interesting.
More honest.

At least it seems that way.

Aside from the brothers Klitschko and the end of the Lennox Lewis era, Heavyweight hasn’t had much to brag about with titlists like Nicolay Valuev, Sergei Lyakhovich, and Sultan Ibragimov.  At least mediocrity has had its faces.

One could say it was a face often worn by Tua as well.  Promise is one thing.  Fulfilling it is another.  There are few fighters in the history of the division who have ever shown a more brutal left hook or stronger chin, able to end things every round of a fight.  That they came in a package generously listed at 5’10 which could be called too passive, too patient, made watching Tua both frustrating and edge of the seat.  One could watch all night wondering if he’d ever get the shot in while also anticipating it with excitement because, when the left landed, it was almost always off to the highlight reels from there.

Still, looking at what was without even looking at what might have been, it’s not hard to conclude David Tua is one of the best Heavyweights never to win a title.  He has settled for beating many others who did, most before they got there, playing bridesmaid to often less appealing brides. 

Considering the multiple belts which have floated around the division almost always since Leon Spinks was stripped by the WBC in 1978 for refusing a fight with Ken Norton, considering some of the flotsam which has proclaimed itself even if only for a fleeting moment as ‘champ of the world,’ how did Tua never win so much as a belt?  Francesco Damiani won a belt.  Tommy Morrison did too.  Hell, Bruce Seldon and Frank Bruno won belts.  How?

A brief look back at the highs and lows provide clues.

One of his earliest victims was John Ruiz.  Ruiz faced Tua in his 28th fight in 1996 and lasted all of 19 seconds.  Oleg Maskaev did better, leading one of three score cards going into the 11th round a year later, but ultimately succumbed to the Samoan slugger.  A Bronze Medalist for New Zealand at the 1992 Olympics, Tua’s victories were becoming a regular attraction on HBO and he looked like the next big thing.  In between, he blazed through undefeated Darrol Wilson in one and David Izon was stopped in twelve.

Even his first defeat, in June 1997, didn’t take away from that.  Unlike the disaster which would be Michael Grant-Andrew Golota in 1999 or Chris Arreola’s undressing last weekend by Vitali Klitschko, no one could scream ‘exposed’ after the twelve rounds of Tua-Ike Ibeabuchi.  In a fight many observers felt he deserved to win, Tua traded bombs with Ibeabuchi in a fight whose punch output was more akin to quality Welterweight action.  Both men left the ring looking like the future of the class.

Ibeabuchi was impeded by the fact that he was, well, insane.

Tua?  After Ibeabuchi, the scale became an issue. 

Tua turned pro at 201 lbs. and, barring one exception, never topped 229 lbs. through his first 28 contests.  Fat was never a word one would have used to describe Tua.  Tree trunk might have been more apt.  For Ibeabuchi, he came in at 226.  He came in lower than that only once more in his career in the first of two bouts with a then-undefeated Hasim Rahman in 1998.  Behind on the cards, he landed a devastating left hook an instant after the bell ending round nine and Rahman, still dazed, was stopped the following round.  The win gave Tua the IBF’s mandatory spot.

That mandatory wound up giving him a lot of time off. 

Having averaged just shy of six fights a year through his first six years as a pro, Tua would fight only four times between the Rahman win and a shot at Lennox Lewis.  None of those four contests came against anyone particularly live.  Tua’s body looked like he knew it at weights of 237, 238, 253, and 243 ½.  Bodies were still hitting the floor when the left hook landed, but there was a visible jiggle behind those shots in the rolls he was collecting on his sides.

On the night of November 11, 2000, Tua showed up for Lewis weighing 245 and, after a competitive first quarter of the fight, spent eight rounds being abused by a man at least seven inches taller but only four pounds heavier.

It was an embarrassing loss but not his end.  Tua would get himself back into position to contend a year later with a renewed focus on conditioning.  Ultimately, it was the wrong kind.  Muscled in a way he’d never been before, Tua came in at a cut 233 for an IBF eliminator with Chris Byrd in August 2001 and lost a close but unanimous decision where he seemed to lack the dexterity he needed late in the fight.

Byrd went on to win a then-vacant IBF title in his next fight.  Tua would rebuild one last time.  The HBO buzz which had once been his had moved on by 2002 to Wladimir Klitschko but Tua’s left hook had a way of changing conversations.  Hovering again in the 240 lbs. range, he picked up the two best wins he’d had in years.  Trailing on the cards, he came up with a big shot in round nine to turn the tide and pummeled an undefeated Fres Oquendo into submission in April 2002.  Four months later, comebacking former lineal World Heavyweight champion Michael Moorer stepped in and was sent out thirty seconds into the fight.

A last opportunity for a title shot, again through the IBF, came in 2003 just weeks after Wladimir was decimated by Corrie Sanders.  Rematched with Rahman, who had defeated and been defeated by Lewis for the Heavyweight title in the years between, Tua had a chance to ride a hot streak in a weight class looking for something to bail it out as Lewis wound down his Hall of Fame run.  When Rahman showed up a ghastly almost 260 lbs., it looked like the chips would fall Tua’s way.

Instead, as had been the case the first time, Rahman’s jab befuddled him and there would be no late save.  In a moment of poetic justice, at least from Rahman’s view, the Baltimore product landed a hook just a shade after the final bell and dropped Tua to the floor.  It was the only knockdown, official or unofficial, ever inflicted on Tua as a pro.  That the verdict was a draw didn’t matter; the world thought he lost and Rahman was off to a short term with a WBC belt.

It’s been over six years since then.  Tua has fought only seven times, never against top ten competition.  Management issues have played a part in his inactivity.  There were two years between bouts from 2005 to 2007, the same span as he’ll face with Cameron this weekend.  His weight was getting better in 2007, all the way back down to 234 but who know what the scale will read this weekend.

Looking at his career as a whole, it’s not surprising he never won a title.  Setbacks in eliminators to Byrd and Rahman are there for all to see.  If one considers the lineage of the Heavyweight title alone (and it’s better that way), then, hey, he got his shot and blew it.  A 53 fight career, to date, with official losses only to Lewis, Byrd, and Ibeabuchi is one any fighter could hang their hat on regardless.

There is more to consider though.

From the time Tua earned his mandatory to the night he drew with Rahman, Lewis unified and then was forced to let go of a piece of the Heavyweight title (WBA) and eventually had his IBF belt bought out.  The WBO belt cycled through both Klitschko’s, Sanders, and Byrd.  There should have been more chances, especially when looking at some of the men Tua beat.

The WBA belt was a consistent fixture in the life of John Ruiz for most of the decade.  He’s won and lost the belt three times and remains high in their ratings.  Oleg Maskaev, whose most notable talent beyond a hard right was the ability to get knocked silly by every top ten Heavyweight he ever faced not named Hasim Rahman, held the WBC belt between 2006 and 08.  Oquendo might have been an IBF titlist if he’d gotten the nod he looked like he earned against Byrd in September 2003.  And while Moorer was past his best, no one before or since went through him like Tua.

It’s obvious to look at his record and see what Tua did to get in his own way.  He also got sucked into the morass of economics and politics (figure out which is which).  He was ready by the end of 1996 for a title shot.  He was just as ready in 1997 and 1998.  As a short pressure fighter, his absolute prime wasn’t likely to last long and it may have passed him by while he waited for the opportunity he’d earned.

Not since has a Heavyweight, without getting blasted out on the way, gone through the sort of quality young Heavyweights he did on his way to a shot.  However, while he was peaking the world around him was getting paid through a combination of matches that included Mike Tyson, Michael Moorer, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.  Money talks and his voice wasn’t loud enough yet.  While he may not have, even then, beaten Lewis, the Tua of 1996-98 would likely have romped Tyson and Moorer and given Holyfield a nasty go.

The mix he needed to be a part of didn’t need him.  In a period where the best were making only occasional appearances, the aged could benefit from their names while the young waited.  Other huge punchers like the young Tyson, Joe Frazier, and George Foreman got their shots at the perfect times.  Tua was on the outside in his moment. 
When HBO got behind the woefully unprepared Michael Grant, and Lewis was forced to beat Holyfield twice to get one of the decisions in 1999, Tua was pushed farther back. 
Tua’s early handlers deserve a lot of credit for the way he was developed but it may be what Tua needed most in the second half of the 1990s was Don King.  King still controlled most of the class then and went with what he had.  King had Ruiz had got him to three belts.  What could King have done with Tua?

It’s an intriguing question.

It doesn’t have an answer.  Whether Tua can pose new questions, at almost 40, remains to be seen and those answers will come in time.  If the punch is the last thing to go, there is plenty of junk in the division right now just waiting to get gone.  It’s more likely this story is already told.

David Tua is 36 years old.  It is what it is.

But, oh, what might have been.

The Weekly Ledger

But wait, there’s more…

Cliff’s Notes…

To his credit, Tua looks to be in good shape for Cameron…If Tarvis Simms somehow upsets Allan Green this weekend, does he become a “Super Six” alternate?  It would be an odd turn for a stalled career…Since he was mentioned, yes this scribe is one of those who think Ike Ibeabuchi would have been the guy this generation needed.  But, again, the whole insanity thing means he wasn’t so who cares…Haven’t seen Cazares-Nashiro yet but a draw isn’t surprising in such a closely matched fight.  A rematch keeps the embers hot at 115.  Love that class…It’s too bad the rematch with Juan Diaz and Paulie Malignaggi couldn’t get together but will anyone notice if it doesn’t happen?  It wasn’t exactly a must-see the first time…Boise State in the BCS title game?  Stranger things have happened.

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com