David Tua: TuaMan - Destiny in my Hands (2000)

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• published: 30 Dec 2011
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David Tua - TuaMan Destiny in my Hands. One of the most watched progammes on New Zealand television, Steven Orsbourn and Davis Crerar spent the three months leading up to the title fight against Lennox Lewis living and filming in the Tua camp... this documentary shows tells the story up to the final week in Las Vegas before the fight. Steven Orsbourn: Tua waiting for the hook - reproduced from nzherald.co.nz The news that David Tua was again climbing into the heavyweight ring gave me an immediate flashback to Las Vegas in 2000 and the three months that I spent living with David in his boxing camp before the Lennox Lewis title fight. I always kept my Tuaman T-shirts that asked me to "Keep the Faith" in a bottom drawer, never throwing them out in case I was asked once again to believe. I'm asking myself now, has that time come? It's been nine years since the most-viewed sporting event in New Zealand television history; nine years of watching Kevin Barry and Martin Pugh slugging it out with David for the Tuaman earnings. Nine years of people asking me what happened and why did it go so very wrong? I co-produced a documentary for TV3 in 2000 (David Tua: Destiny in my Hands) that showed his road to the ring against Lennox Lewis. I lived at the Las Vegas ranch with director David Crerar, filming and living the art and business of boxing. And it was a business - the David Tua show was going to be punched live to the world in primetime and everyone wanted a part of the action. Kiwis dreamed David would achieve what seemed impossible: To triumph in the modern day David vs Goliath encounter. What really happened that day will for the time being remain an untold story, until the court cases are over, the protagonists finally stop fighting and time can heal some of the wounds. I wonder if a little bit of my heart died the night David lost to Lewis. I knew the facts about the fight of course - the Tuaman was shorter, his reach and punch meant he had to get close to let off his powerful left, he had badly hurt ribs from a sparring accident and he needed to throw his right to put Lewis out of his comfort zone. We interviewed the legendary George Foreman before the bout and he had told us the Tuaman had a "puncher's chance". The Bob Jones's and Burt Sugar's of the real world thought we were dreamers, unschooled and naive about boxing and David's ultimate fate. History proved them correct, but we were entitled to dream. The Samoan kid from the islands and Mangere worked with Barry, the former-Olympic boxer and one time plasterer from Christchurch. If styles made fights, how could you fight this odd couple? David and Kevin seemed to be blood; they always knew the world was against them, but that wasn't something new. They had always faced it together. As a family should. And if they had got this far together - against all the rules and naysayers - you had to believe it could go one more bout. We had faith in the Tuaman. It didn't happen and it didn't last. We all grew up that night, following David's defeat to Lewis, and told ourselves to stop dreaming. What on Earth were we thinking? It felt like a death in the family. Yet somehow it was more than that: it was the end of the family. David and Kevin began a long and bitter divorce.Such stories always seem to have "the other lover", in this case it was to be Martin Pugh. Have you have ever wondered why boxing is the ultimate sport, why the good and the bad, the rich and the famous watch these contests? Why will you cheer a man to pound, bloody and bruise another? When he hits the canvas you look away, and when he stumbles up again you cheer just that bit louder. Take the chance to step into a ring, and then imagine where you could run too, where you could hide, whether you could stand and fight. And then ask yourself the ultimate question: Is it going to be him or me they carry out of here? Can I stand and fight? I'm not a fighter, I've asked myself that question and I know my trembling answer. I know that David has asked himself that question again, and that the answer was "yes". And now one night in June this year, I hope the Tuaman can give me back a little bit of my heart again. I'm glad I saved my T-shirt. I'm going to be a dreamer again.