David Tua

Never touch a ball.

Please welcome David Tua to the

Kiwis camp.

Well, look, I guess, I mean, there's supposed to be, there's rumours that the next Rugby League World Cup's going to be in Utah and Hawaii, so you never know.

In this episode, we talk about living in a tent as a little boy, struggling with reading and writing, and leaving school at the age of 13, then going from life on the farm to sharing a boxing ring with Mike Tyson.

We also get into the David Tua fight, the build up, the devastating loss and picking himself up afterwards and how the two of them ended up drinking tequila in Shane's garage years later.

Plus there's life after boxing, depression, his fear of dementia and what gives him purpose these days.

Shane is a super humble guy who's very open about the things he's proud of and the things he wishes he'd done differently.

I had my first professional fight under the guidance of Kenny Rainsfield.

It was around that time.

And then the next fight, I was in Las Vegas with David Tua, Kevin Barry, and Daniel Codling.

Yeah, so.

Now, let me give you some stats here.

David Tua, right? 20 years old when he first turned pro 1992 straight off of Barcelona right his first 27 pro fights 23 by knockout and that's in America that's not over here guys these guys records right all their records that's all over here brother That's all over here, right? Him, you're here, 25 and 1.

Well, most of those are over here, and then a couple of those are in Dubai.

Alright, welcome to another episode of the EOTC podcast, Empty Out The Clip.

Well, most of those are over here.

And then a couple of those are in Dubai.

But David Tua, at the age of 27, he fought for the world title after that.

Age 20, he turned pro, 1992.

Thank you.

Also, on that, I think they debunked the O for Awesome thing with David Tua.

There's, like, a video online, and it shows that, like, he didn't actually say that, and it's just been this massive pile on for years that, like, everyone's like, oh, he thought that's how he spelled it.

Oh,

Listen, he was somebody.

Well, he still has the record for the amount of punches thrown in a heavyweight fight against David Tua, yeah? Yeah, he was quiet to do that.

David Tua.

Him and Ike Ibuchi throwing over a thousand punches

each.

But, yeah, so that's where my love for the sport came, was just boxing.

And remembering that moment just sitting down by Dad's feet watching boxing and watching the science of boxing and David Tua and just from there.

And then at Intermediate, I went to my mate's house.

His old man chucked some gloves on me.

Moses Atama's lying to you.

that's the frightening part because that kid's that that kid's still swinging mate he was he was i i have only ever seen a fighter that tired one time in my life david against carl thompson yeah we're afraid he's so tired he's going to fall

over and and carl what carl did today was the best thing that ever happened to david he never guessed that again look what he did in the first fight with you with the ankle and kept on going he never guessed out again Dads,

I want to ask about Ben Davison's name keeps popping up at the minute.

And I suppose to an extent, you know, fairly, well, obviously he was Fabio's trainer, would have been part of the team to have decided to make the decision to take the rematch so quickly.

Jeez, I had that actually happen back in the day when I was super fit.

And David Tua did the, it was like a machine bicep curl.

And I was doing about a third of the stack.

David Taylor goes, can I have a crack at that when you're resting? I was like, yeah, all good.

You must be right up there.

What we're basically looking for is a Brodie Retallick-style human with the mentality, the animalistic mentality of someone like David Tua or Shane Cameron, you know? Hang on, Eli from the Dreadnaughts.

G'day, Eli.

How are you?