Why Didn't David Tua Have More Success?

Because he was not "The next elite heavyweight champion or the new Mike Tyson" everybody made him out to be.
He is incredibly overrated.
He wasn't that skilled. Granite chin and strong knockout power, but wasn't exactly a technically skilled boxer not that fast or elusive.
Almost impossible to KO but can be outboxed if you have the skill.

 

Fat lazy one dimensional one gear.

 

He had a lot of success.

 

Fairly lukewarm era with 4 major belts. Pretty exciting to watch with knockout power so promoters and fans liked him. Usually had a good ranking. I don't think it was the lack of opportunity.

I think it was that he simply struggled with certain styles and just didn't know how to adjust. He really only had two gears: slug, or stalk a guy loading up for one big hit over and over. Lewis and Byrd completely embarrassed him, so it's easy to give him a pass since they had elite skill and technique. But even a green Hasim Rahman who was not known for being a particularly skilled boxer was outboxing him using angles, jabs and footwork. It reminded me of how Morrison figured out how to get on his bike and move for the first time against Foreman.

Tua looked good against shaky chinned guys like Ruiz or people who were willing to brawl like Ike. I think his trainers should have had him work on cutting the ring off, improving his defense, being a more dedicated body puncher, and maintaining that high volume work rate he displayed in the aforementioned Ike fight (rather than arrogantly thinking he can just turn any fight around with one hit and losing many rounds). He actually had a good jab but often neglected it. Lastly, Tua could go into his shell and coast to a loss or get discouraged/lazy both in the ring and in training camps. Doesn't matter how good the trainer is if the fighter isn't there mentally.

 

Idk, maybe he was just like the contender s in Joe Louis and Alis era. They looked great and the part, till they faced the much better champion.
Who showed them their limations and weakness.
If Lewis had faced Tua another 11 times then the score stands at 12-0

 

He just wasn't as good as many envisioned and when he stepped up he often didn't get the job done. Of course it was tough when his biggest fight ever was against an ATG like Lewis.

 

One time, he was over my house for dinner, asked to pass him "some more of that mac and cheese" and I politely told him it was actually rotelli. "What? It's got cheese sauce?" He said, quizzically. "Yeah, but the pasta is rotelli, so it can't be mac and che-"I began and he took the butter dish and just raked it across my jaw in a kind of a hooking motion with his left hand and I could feel it as I spat out tooth after tooth and he was like "How 'bout those? Those teeth or Altoids? Huh? Huh? You wanna cash me outside? How 'bout dat? Huh?...Huh?!" It was a really brutal attack. I always thought he'd be champion after that but it was just a timing issue. And, by that, I mean I went to the store and all the macaroni had been bought up and so I settled on rotelli and how the hell was I supposed to know what the repercussions for that were going to be? Is it my fault he never became champion? What the eff?

 

Janitor will be here soon.
I think in simple terms "There are levels to this" and Tua was two steps below the best of his era.

 

As Lennox said you need more than a left hook and a bad haircut

Dangerous, entertaining fighter but too slow and one dimensional to make it against the elite level

 

It is a good question to be honest.

I am as hard on him as anybody, but I am still a surprised that we didn't see a bit more from him.

I don't think that he was a potential world beater, but less able men did more in that era, and sometimes it came down to having the right connections.

He should probably have been guided to alphabet champion status at some point.

 

He excelled in a few key areas but fell short in a large number of others. His lack of boxing iq was his worst failing, and he often lacked motivation to make up for it. His feet were very plodding, and he didn't have the skill to get past even rudimentary jabs which led to fighters like Jeff Wooden being able to keep him at range the whole night. If you tried brawling with him on the inside you were putting yourself in harm's way of his monstrous left hook, but if you chose to fight at range Tua got shut down pretty quickly.

 

Should have signed with DKP and not the Duva clan. And King would have had Kevin Barry out of there in a nanosecond.

Also needed to jump rope more and far more roadwork. He had very slow legs and being a short heavy, he needed to have springs in those legs and a quick attack with those feet---like a Tyson. The extra weight sure didn't help but I thought the guy should have never been over 225. Some additional ringsmarts wouldn't have hurt the cause either.

 

Nah.

He fell short in his title eliminators as well.

It wasn't just Lewis by any means!