Tua decisions Ahunanya, fails to impress

By Boxing News - 04/01/2010 - Comments

Image: Tua decisions Ahunanya, fails to impressBy Jim Dower: In a battle of aging heavyweights, David Tua (51-3-1, 43 KO’s) won a boring unimpressive 12 round unanimous decision against Friday Ahunanya (24-6-3, 13 KO’s) on Wednesday night at the Trusts Stadium, in Auckland, New Zealand. The final judges’ scores were 119-109, 117-111 and 120-108. Tua, 37, stalked Ahunanya around the ring all night long trying to land a big punch. However, Ahunanya stayed on the constant move, changing directions constantly to keep Tua guessing and unable to land his big punches.

Like in the past when going up against fighters with any kind of movement, the 5’10” Tua had problems landing his punches. Tua failed to throw combinations in the fight, and instead was limited to only one shot at a time for the most part. This is the same problems that Tua has had since he stopped being a factor in the heavyweight division shortly after his one-sided loss to Lennox Lewis a decade ago in November 2000.

Tua used to throw a lot of combinations at one point in his career. In his last fight against Shane Cameron, Tua for the first time in years, threw a number of fierce looking combinations and was able to blast Cameron out in the first two rounds. Last night, however, Tua was back to the one punch at a time routine, and was unable to give Ahunanya any real problems because of it.

Rounds one and two had little action to speak of. Tua stalked Ahunanya around the ring, moving his head constantly, but only throwing one punch at a time. Ahunanya jabbed and threw right hands but looked scared for the most part. In the 3rd, Tua finally was able to land a few harmless shots. However, the power wasn’t there because Tua was literally chasing after Ahunanya.

Tua caught Ahunanya along the ropes at the start of the 4th round and tagged him with a powerful three punch combination. Ahunanya moved off the ropes quickly before Tua had time to land any more big punches. The remainder of the round saw Tua landing occasionally with one punch at a time, but unable to land any big 1-2 combinations.

Rounds five through seven were dull rounds with neither fighter landing many punches. Ahunanya circled the ring continuously, and kept Tua on the run chasing after him. Tua’s short legs proved to be poor at cutting off the ring against the quicker, 6’0” Ahunanya. In the 8th round, Tua landed a huge left hook to the body of Ahunanya but much else in the round.

Ahunanya was on his bike in rounds nine, ten and eleven, keeping Tua from landing any big shots. A faster heavyweight would have been able to catch up to Ahunanya and spark him out. However, Tua wasted too much time moving his head and ducking as he plodded forward when he really need to because Ahunanya had no power and was mostly jabbing and throwing weak right hands. Head movement is a useful thing when fighting a puncher, but Ahunanya had no power to speak of and was purely trying to just survive.

Tua needed to forget all the head movement and ducking and just steam roll forward to take Ahunanya out. Tua attempted to land a big shot in the 11th and 12th, but only threw one punch at a time and failed to throw any combinations.

All in all, it was a poor performance from Tua. He fought ineffectively, failed to throw combinations and spent too much time moving his head and upper body despite the fact that Ahunanya was throwing basically nothing at him and just running. If Tua had been facing a better heavyweight than Ahunanya last night, I think Tua would have lost badly. He’s got to be more aggressive and throw more combinations. The head movement is nice but it seems to slow Tua down because he doesn’t throw enough punches when he’s moving his head all the time.



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