by James Slater — It seems we will see heavyweight powerhouse David Tua climb back into a boxing ring after all. Inactive for over a year now, Tua and his people are working on a number of fights for him right now. Most sought at the moment is a long awaited Tua-Shane Cameron clash, a fight that would be huge in New Zealand. However, this fight is being held up by money issues between the two fighters and their respective promoters.
Tua’s guy, the well known Cedric Cushner, says the money on the table for the once-beaten Cameron is more than “The Mountain Warrior” has ever earned in his whole career, and wants the fight to take place no later than March 2009. Whereas Cameron’s guy, Ken Reinsfield, wants more money for his fighter and a June date – because Cameron already has a March 7th “homecoming” fight scheduled. The two teams are now at loggerheads.
Kushner is set on the fight taking place in March because, he claims, Tua has other “lucrative” offers, such as a still possible big-money match with the unbeaten Chris Arreola. For his part, 31-year-old Cameron, who has only been beaten by Friday Ahunanya (in a brutal slugfest, finally going down via a 12th round TKO), says he wants to fight Tua and is in no way scared.
“I would definitely take the fight with Tua,” the 22-1(19) Cameron told The Sunday Star-Times. “But it has got to be on different terms to those offered to us. Just because Tua wants to fight, he can wait. How long have I been waiting to fight him?”
Indeed, these two have been spoken of as facing one another for some time now.
“When I called him out a couple of years back, he was the one in the strong position,” Cameron continued. “But now the tables have turned, they want what I’ve got; the titles, the rankings, so they can do it on my terms and come back with a better offer.”
All of New Zealand wants the fight, whereas fight fans in general would just be happy seeing “The Tua Man” back in action against anyone. Without a doubt, though, a Cameron-Tua showdown would be extremely interesting.
Cameron, though not a big name outside of New Zealand, is an exciting, come-to-fight tough guy, who would likely test Tua to the fullest. With wins over so-so opposition such as Kevin Montiy and Terry Smith, the 31-year-old 230-pounder has made a name for himself in his home country. He and Tua would in all likelihood go bang at each other if they did meet.
It seemed as though Tua, 49-3-1(42) had done all he would in the sport, not having boxed since his September 2007 KO win over Cerrone Fox. The proposed Arreola fight seemed a lost fight, but not according to Cushner, who says it may still happen after all. But Tua, who turns 36 on November 21st, must get a move on and fight someone soon.
It would make most sense to come to terms with Cameron’s people and fight his New Zealand rival. The winner from such a fight would then be in a position to get an even bigger fight.