How do you rate Tua?

not at all, he never even managed to pick up an alphabelt for christ's sake, seriously most ridiculously overrated fighter i've seen.

 

I think he was better than some of the guys who held alphabet titles though. Tua only got one shot at a title, and it was against a great champion in Lennox Lewis.

If Tua was with Don King for instance, he probably would've gotten multiple chances and won a belt.

How many ****ing title shots did the king of choking, Andrew Golota, get?

I've never made a list, but I imagine that Tua would not be very high.

 

How do I rate Tua? Honestly rate him?

With six inches of plexiglass between us..

 

Exactly. Rahman, Moorer, and so many other clowns got title shots left and right.

David Tua is underrated on this forum. The guy was born with a concrete chin and explosive power. It's rare that you find a boxer who naturally has both. Those are God-given gifts. If Tua was not an underachiever, he would have been one of the best ever. Just imagine if he had the heart and courage of Joe Frazier or Rocky Marciano.

He would have knocked out other "greats" like Braddock, Carnera, Willard, and so many others in head to head combat. Yes, David was outboxed several times. Izon, Maskaev, Rahman, etc. But what happened when Tua caught them? He knocked them out. It doesn't matter how many rounds you win. If you get knocked out, you lose the fight. For example, it doesn't matter that Billy Conn frustrated Joe Louis for 13 rounds. When Joe caught him, the fight was over.

David was on a roll until his first defeat, which put a damper on his training and motivation. He gained weight, and fell in love with his power. No more uppercuts, body punching, or combinations. No more defense, either. He became a guy who plodded forward looking to ring bells with his left hook; a strategy that failed miserably when he fought Lennox Lewis. Tua said that he had no plan B if he couldn't knock him out. Sad, because there were many times during the fight when Tua had Lewis cornered and threw nothing. It's a fight that he could have won. All he had to do was throw more punches.

But...the same thing happened to Mike Tyson. Tyson lost focus later in his career just as Tua did. But yet he's considered a great, and rightfully so. If we're going to chastize Tua for his lack of aggression versus Lennox Lewis, then we have to do the same to Mike Tyson for when he fought Lewis. Sure, Tyson was past his peak. But, when Tua faced Lewis, he was past his peak, too. He was no longer the 218 pound slugger with busy hands who KO'd John Ruiz in 19 seconds. I guarantee that if Lewis and Tua had fought 4 years earlier, Tua knocks him out, or Lennox would find himself in a war similar to his brawl with Ray Mercer.

David Tua is my favorite fighter. No, he wasn't the best, but with his granite chin and crushing power, he has to be ranked at least somewhere in the top twenty. There are so many past champions that he would have KO'd. He's the best heavyweight to never win a title. But to be fair, I'm talking about the prime David Tua--the fighter who slugged it out with Ike Ibeabuchi in 1997.

"For the first couple of rounds, you might get lucky or cute. But once the Tuaman catches up, it's lights out!!" -David Tua (July 21, 2000)

 

Physical beast of any era. Didn't achieve his potential but did give us some great fights. The era of his heavyweight division was fairly stacked and training in NZ might not of done him many favours.

Tua V Liston or Chuvalo would be fun but he gets eaten. Tyson would have ate him up in a couple rounds IMO.

 

:thumbsup

I rate him Top2 at the most overrated hw of all time. Although he get´s challenged by Cleveland Williams, Ron Lyle and Jimmy Young these days.

 

I'd rate him top30 and maybe the H2H best never to win a title, yes I'm including Wills/Langford in that. No he's not overrated, he's underrated on here and its mainly a backlash because some rightly pick him over some posters fave ATGs in H2Hs

 

Hes very overrated but in hth matchups its tricky with him.... I mean alot of undersized but very good heavys with mediocre chins are most likely getting smoked here... But a lot of so so hws with solid boxing skills and good chins beat him.... I remember a journeyman name Jeff Wooden outboxed a near prime David Tua only for the decision to go Tuas way, dont believe boxing records the scoring was bad.... But a a good Hw titlist like Michael Moorer who had good skills and a good punch but somewhat fragile chin always gets blown out by Tua even a prime version.

By the way a prime Tim Witherspoon schools Tua and beats him easily.

 

The sort of fighter who (because of his style) was capable of losing to very inferior opposition but still capable of beating much better fighters. Wasted potential. He would have done better when heavyweights were smaller and there were fewer tall boxers around (in other words it's a shame he ran into Lennox Lewis)

 

He's one of the hardest punchers I've ever seen. He's a tank, incredibly strong and powerful and like a block of concrete durable.

But he could be outboxed by any good boxer. He wasn't hard to figure out. He had a Tyson-esque attacking style but without the variety and intelligence of attack when needed.
He was dangerous up to the last bell, but any championship-caliber fighter with boxing skill would handle him pretty easily, I reckon.

Tua seemed to put on weight soon after breaking until the rankings, maybe a year or two, and his weaknesses became even more pronounced. A predictable plodder who'd walk down second-raters and blast them out sooner or later, but could be befuddled at times too.

Lewis v Tua was one of the lousiest title fights ever. Tua looked like he didn't want it, and came in overweight. Lewis didn't have to do much but walk around Tua picking his shots, and he didn't feel the need to go anything extra. It was awful excuse for heavyweight championship fight.

Tua was in there fighting for the UNDISPUTED HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD and he didn't even put in a real effort or challenge.
That pretty much disqualifies him from the discussion on him being a "great" fighter not to win a title. He showed himself completely unworthy of championship honours, no ifs or buts.

 

Tua was never the same after the Ike fight .. he lost something that night , desire, focus, determination ... he never fought with that passion and focus again .. he regressed and never bounced back so I'd say he was an underachiever ...with his strength, speed, power, stamina and chin he should have accomplished much more ...

 

If Tua was with King during the time he came up, he would have been a multiple time beltholder for sure.
Tua is not overated, but he made poor career choices and really let himself go before he got to challenge for the title. There was a big difference between the Main Events promoted Tua and the America Presents promoted Tua.
Duva held him back too long because David's parents were very much in control of the early part of his career, but they waited too long to let him fight for the title by not working with King and waiting to get a shot at Lewis, which they werent involved in because Main Events broke apart, and they sold Tua's contract and position to Dan Goosen who didnt have the type of "trainer infastructure" that Main Events had so Tua let himself go and went down the tubes quickly.

 

I don't think he's top 50, honestly.

Huge punch and chin, and little else. Certainly no ambition.