By Sean McDaniel: Former heavyweight challenger David Tua (49-3-1, 42 KOs) is going to continue his lengthy comeback on June 6th against heavyweight Shane Cameron (22-1, 19 KOs) in a 12-round bout in Auckland, New Zealand. Unbelievable as it may seem, Tua, now 36, started his comeback in 2005 after a two year lay off following a 12-round draw in a IBF title eliminator bout in 2003 against Hasim Rahman, and has only been active for seven fights in the past four years.
That’s probably not nearly enough for someone that has hopes of challenging for a heavyweight title. Tua has now been off for since defeating Cerrone Fox in a 2nd round blow out in September 2007. However, Tua expects to get serious about his career from here on out, starting with his fight with Cameron.
This is a fight that Tua is reportedly getting paid $500,000 for, a good price for a fighter that’s not currently ranked in the top 15 in any of the boxing organizations at this time. Given that, it’s probably going to take some time – and a lot of fights – for Tua to move up in the rankings, enabling him to get another title shot. At 36, he might not have enough left to make it back up high enough to get a title shot, no matter how hard he tries.
His work rate has diminished badly since challenging for the heavyweight title a long nine years ago against Lennox Lewis in November 2000, dropping off to almost a trickle. The good thing for Tua, though, is that he’s still got so much power that he’s been able to get away with throwing far fewer punches.
But when he steps it from the C-class fighters that he’s been fighting for the most part since starting his comeback in 2005 to a good A or B level fighter, Tua may find himself unable to land enough punches to plant a better fighter.
At best, Tua has always been an average boxer, who relies on knocking out his opponents to get his wins. However, in a fight that goes the full course, all bets are off as Tua has a good chance of losing against a fighter with a good jab and movement. Cameron, 31, probably doesn’t have enough skills to beat Tua, but he definitely has a chance if his chin can hold up.
Cameron, from New Zealand, has dined on mostly local, lower quality opponents in his home land. However, even then, he’s still been beaten when he stepped it up against a good B class fighter in Friday Ahunanya, who knocked Cameron out in the 12th round in 2007.
If Friday was able to put Cameron away, then Tua also has an excellent chance of repeating that against him. If Tua does come out the winner, he needs to start moving quickly on his career and avoid any more lay-off like this recent year long absence from the ring.
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