By Jim Dower: Fresh off his 2nd round TKO of Shane Cameron last night in New Zealand, heavyweight David Tua and his promoter plan on making another appearance in December, just before Christmas, according to the latest boxing news. The fight, however, will likely be taking place in New Zealand, because Tua reportedly has a contract with Maori Television to hold his next bouts there.

This unfortunately will prevent the fight from making as much money as it would for Tua if it were to take place in the United States. As of now, Tua’s promoter Cedric Kushner isn’t saying who Tua will be fighting next, but it could possibly be former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman. The plan is for Tua to fight two to three more times before putting him in a title fight against one of the champions.

As of now, he’s not ranked in the top 15 in any of the sanctioning bodies, but after his impressive performance against Cameron, that is likely to change really quick. Tua, 36, knocked Cameron down with a big left hook to the head late in the 1st round. Tua knocked Cameron down again moments later with another left hand to the head. The fight was allowed to continue, even though it looked like Cameron was all but finished from the left hand shots he had taken.

In the next round, Tua wasted little time in taking Cameron out, overwhelming him with a snowstorm of punches early in the round that sent Cameron down on his backside for the third and final time in the fight. The bout was stopped at 0:07 by referee Bruce McTavish.

For Tua, it was easily his best performance in the last seven years since he took out former heavyweight champion Michael Moorer in the 1st round in August 2002. Since then, Tua has played it safe for the most part, fighting B level fighters, looking heavy at times and not fighting at the same capacity that he did earlier in his career. Tua missed two years of his career between 2003 to 2005 due to management problems.

However, even when Tua did make his comeback, he still wasn’t fighting as often as he needed to. But last night, it was as if Tua went back in a time warp to the 1990s, in which he was a powerful Tyson clone with fast hands, a good work rate and, of course, incredible power.

With Tua’s weight at the proper level, he attacked Cameron with an intensity that we hadn’t seen from Tua in many years. It was nothing short of a sensational performance by Tua. However, we need to put the victory in perspective. This was Cameron, a medium sized heavyweight at 6’2″, not particularly fast or powerful.

Tua, if he is serious about his comeback, will be facing much better heavyweights than this like Kevin Johnson, Odlanier Solis, Alexander Povetkin and Eddie Chambers. Tua will have to prove that he has it in him to beat those kinds of fighters if he’s to succeed in his comeback. But Tua can certainly beat fighters like this, if he fights the way he did against Cameron.