Teremoana Jnr is waiting for the call that will advise him when he will be able to claim another scalp.
The exciting Australian heavyweight prospect has split his pro career in two. He was 4-0 before switching back to the amateurs, and he’s 4-0 since the Paris Olympics – with four first-round knockouts.
Teremoana, 27, is managed by Brian Peters and promoted by Matchroom. He lost to Bakhodir Jalalov in the Olympics quarterfinals before setting his sights on professional gold.
“I’ve been going great,” he told BoxingScene, while hoping to field a call in the near future informing him that he could box again in October. “I’ve just finished my [training] session at the moment. I’m just here at the gym; just finished up. I’ve just been staying in the gym.
“I made the Olympics. Since then, I’ve had four fights since December last year. I’ve managed to get them all out in the first round. And yeah, I’m 8-0, but I look at it as 4-0 because I’ve had my pro career in two stints. I had four fights and went to the amateurs, and then I had another four fights just recently. So I’m just getting back into the pro style and we’re just really just hustling and grinding because it’s obviously a bit different to the amateurs.”
Teremoana is cutting a path towards the top of the heavyweight division. His four quick wins have put his rivals on notice, and those behind the scenes in Australia – including IBF cruiserweight titleholder Jai Opetaia, who has sparred the heavyweight in the past – have spoken about Teremoana’s talents for years.
“That was before I got back into the amateurs, so probably about two, three years ago was the last I sparred Jai,” he said.
“But just being in the ring with him, sharing the gym with him, just seeing his mindset, how he trains and stuff, he’s just unreal – so good. And just to be around people like that, it rubs off and it’s a pleasure.”
That is a microcosm of the booming Australian boxing scene. The roster of world-class talent is lengthy, with Skye Nicolson, Tim Tszyu, Liam Paro, the Moloney twins, George Kambosos Jnr and more vying for big fights.
“A hundred per cent,” said Teremoana. “I think we’re just in a new era of Aussie boxing. As you can see now, a lot of the people that are doing well on the world stage from Australia, they’ve all either represented Australia, like the Olympics or [Commonwealth] Games.
“They’ve represented Australia internationally and now we’re just getting the fruits of our labor – like, all the hard yards are paying off. I’ve been boxing – how old am I, 27? – fifteen years now. So it’s a long time I’ve been giving to the craft and I’ve only taken it seriously the past five years. We’ve got that pedigree behind us now.”
Teremoana is 8-0 (8 KOs) as a pro, but he counts only the fights that came after his participation at the Paris Olympics of 2024.
He knows that before then he had not taken boxing as seriously as he might have.
It was only relatively recently that he started to do some homework and study tape of past great fighters.
“It was only in the past five years I started really thinking about boxing and looking at styles and stuff like that,” he explained. “I realized I really like Lennox Lewis, George Foreman and Wladimir Klitschko. I like all their styles, and if I can put all their styles into one, I’d really like that to be my style. You’ve got the boxer-puncher Lennox Lewis; you’ve got that strength from Foreman and then the boxing IQ from Klitschko, fighting from range.”
As a youngster, Teremoana admired Paul Gallen, a rugby league star and New South Wales Blues team captain who also boxed pro. But there was no role model more profound than his father.
“The people I looked up to in my life was probably my father at the most,” he said.
“I looked up to him. He kind of directed my path, and my grandfather as well. That’s why I'm doing this – to put our family name on the world stage. Both of these men made a lot of sacrifices for me and my family. And just from their sacrifices, they’ve given me the opportunity to do this, to do boxing in Australia. And I’m just using the opportunity they gave me and giving it a crack, as I’ve been saying.”
And it was Teremoana’s grandfather that led to him using the lengthy name he fights under.
He fights out of Brisbane, and was called Samson – a middle name – when he was younger, but when he turned 21 in 2019 he said he wanted to be known as Teremoana, the name he was born with that he shared with his grandfather.
When his grandfather passed a year earlier, he decided he would be known that way – as Teremoana.
“And because I’m named after him – his name is Teramoana Tangauru – I just asked everyone, all my family, to start calling me by my first name, which is Teremoana,” he said. “And then, since that day, that got me thinking – it gave me a sense of pride, because now when you say my name, you’re saying my family’s name. And then that kind of flicked the switch in my head. It got me thinking, like, what do I want to do? Because now anything I do reflects the family.
“And then I just decided, ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a crack. I’ll be world champion.’ So I’ll let the world say my grandfather's name.
“He’d be so proud to know that his name’s gone all over the world, like to America, UK. I know he'd be so proud.”
Teremoana has lofty aspirations, but his focus never shifts beyond the next fight.
Although he is already preparing diligently, everything will be amped up and dialed in once his opponent for October is known.
Now, in part, is when he learns and improves.
“We’ve only had four fights, so I’m still hustling, still grinding, still trying to learn the whole craft of the program – the pro game – like all the nitty gritty, the inside work, the clinching. Because, as I said, it's a bit different to the amateur game,” he said. “I’ve had four fights – four rounds – so I haven’t got too much rounds in the bank. As you know, over here in Australia, we don’t have the best world-class sparring. I definitely do get rounds out and get the work done. But I believe for me to improve, I need to come overseas and do a lot – like a camp overseas, sparring, trying all your international boys in the UK and America. I think that's the plan, what we’re going to do, and then just go from there.
“So my goal is just to keep on leveling up, work on everything, work on how to fight southpaws, work on fighting from range, work on the inside. All those little things, just so I can be a complete athlete. So when the time comes in a few years, when I’m fighting for a world title, I plan to win it, then hold it.”
He has faith in Peters and co-promoters Matchroom, Tasman Fighters and Gold Star and will stay in the gym, working and learning.
All the while, Teremoana’s stock is rising, and more and more people are talking about his possible rise. With that will come increased exposure under the microscope and, at times, the hostile glare of the media.
Is he prepared for that?
“When you say when you’re prepared for it, I tend to just live in the moment and enjoy the whole experience,” he said. “My outlook on it is, yeah, a lot of people are starting to know me and say my name, but I’m just enjoying the experience because never did I thought I’d be in New York fighting in Madison Square Garden [where he had his past fight, stopping the 9-0 Aleem Whitfield]. So things like that, it’s amazing. It’s a massive accomplishment.
“Even going to the Olympic Games, like all these things, the experiences – they were all just moments. They’ve all passed. I’m here at the gym now, so it’s not like there’s nobody saying my name and that. So I enjoy the experience when it’s there, but I enjoy my downtime and my privacy.”
For now, though, it is back to the gym and working, steadfast in the belief that he will one day rule the heavyweight division.
“Oh, 100 per cent,” he said. “I believe I’m the future of the division. And, with time, we’ll just keep proving it one step at a time.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, is on The Ring ratings panel and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
