TUA FOR THE SHOW

How do you describe David Tua, the Samoan heavyweight?

In presenting a tribute to his countryman last month before the House of Representatives, Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, U.S. congressman from American Samoa, pushed aside concerns about stereotyping and read the following poem on Samoans by comedian Frank Delima:

“I’m nine feet tall and six feet wide.

I got a neck made of elephant hide.

I scrape the [shells] off the soles of my feet.

I drive my Volkswagen from the back seat.”

Not quite true.

Tua only wishes he was nine feet tall.

He works hard to make sure he never gets to be six feet wide.

He wears hard-soled shoes and doesn’t own a Volkswagen.

But he is as Samoan as they come and proud of it. And he thought so much of the poem, he had it included in his press packet.

On Saturday, Tua will be carrying that pride, along with the hopes and dreams of his people, into the ring when he takes on Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight championship at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

For Tua, a victory would be the highlight of a life begun in poverty in Western Samoa and a career begun in fear in Auckland, New Zealand.

For Samoans everywhere, it would be a reminder to the world that they were once fierce warriors who ruled their small piece of the globe.

Saturday is National David Tua Day in Samoa, an independent state, and American Samoa, a U.S. territory.

Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, prime minister of Samoa, has issued an edict ordering his people to wear ulafala necklaces all this week in support of Tua. The ulafala, always worn by Tua himself, consists of red beads from a paogo tree, the red signifying the blood shed by Samoan warriors of previous generations.

A weeklong prayer vigil is underway in the Samoan community of Auckland, 1,500 miles from Samoa.

“This is a truly historic event for us,” Tanupo Aukuso, chairman of a David Tua fan club, told the New Zealand Herald. “Win or lose, it doesn’t matter to us. This is the first time someone from the Pacific Islands has ever gotten this far.”

As part of the ceremony to bless Tua, tattooed warriors paraded around with a Bible on a wooden stretcher.

Similar ceremonies are being held on the islands of Samoa.

There are Tua songs in New Zealand and a Tua action doll. He appears in public-service commercials for seats belts and against graffiti.

“It will be a day that will be remembered by Samoans throughout the world,” Faleomavaega said in his speech to Congress, “the Samoan David going up against the Goliath, Lewis.”

Tua booster John Stowers told the New Zealand Star Times, “New Zealand needs something to hang some hope on.”

Talk about pressure. It’s tough enough to face the left jabs and right uppercuts of the 6-foot-5 Lewis when you give away seven inches as the 5-10 Tua does. But it has to be even tougher when you are carrying your countrymen and the legend of your ancestors on your shoulders.

Not a problem, insists the easygoing Tua.

“Having the whole country behind me can only help,” he insisted. “I have been very humbled to have the high cheese of my country order everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, to wear the ulafala because normally, they are not allowed to wear it. This fight means everything to Samoa. And for me. I feel the spirit of my ancestors is with me.”

As a boy, Tua would have been voted least likely to reinvent the warrior tradition of his people.

He didn’t like his first taste of boxing. Hated it, as a matter of fact. As a young boy, he was afraid of his own gloves.

Born on Faleatiu, the smallest island in Western Samoa, he was pushed into the ring by his father, Tuavale Lio Mafaufau Sanerivi, himself a former boxer.

Tua was faced with a simple choice: Battle opponents his own age or face his father.

He was forced by his father to stand in front of banana trees and pound them with his fists until the fruit came tumbling down.

When he decided to replace the trees with live opponents, Tua’s father promised potential sparring partners, some of them adults, that, if they beat his son, he would give them sweets or a loaf of bread from the family convenience store. But, if they went easy on Tua, they would be receiving something far different, their own punishment from the fists of the father.

“I’d hear Dad outside rounding up sparring partners,” Tua said, “and I’d run off and hide at my grandparents’ house. When he’d find out where I was, I’d change locations.

“Then I’d try to sneak back into our house at night after the lights were turned off. I figured Dad was asleep. He never was. He’d be waiting for me with the strap. At that age, boxing was a sport I tried very hard to avoid.”

But there was no avoiding it for Tua, even when he and his family moved to New Zealand when he was 11.

Life in Auckland wasn’t much easier than it had been in Samoa. Tua still remembers the excitement he and his brothers felt when they found an old television abandoned by the side of a road.

It was a black-and-white set with a small screen. And he and his brothers had to take turns holding up the antenna while the others watched.

But nobody complained.

In Auckland, Tua lost his first fight even though he thoroughly whipped his opponent. He knew that the referee was yelling at him, but he thought that he was being told to keep boxing.

Not exactly.

Hampered by an unfamiliarity with the English language, Tua didn’t understand that the referee was ordering him to stop.

When Tua finally did stop, he figured the official would raise his arm in triumph. He was stunned to find out that, instead, it was the opponent’s arm being raised.

Tua had been disqualified.

His father’s reaction?

“When I got home, he beat my . . .,” Tua said.

Don’t get the idea there are hard feelings. Tua has so much admiration for his father that he took the first three letters of his father’s first name to come up with the last name the rest of the world knows him by.

His father’s confidence in Tua was rewarded. As the Samoan fighter’s success in the ring grew, it was the opponents’ turn to be afraid.

With devastating power and unyielding determination, Tua moved up through the amateur ranks, from titles in the South Pacific all the way to Barcelona, Spain, where he won a bronze medal for New Zealand at the 1992 Olympics.

He finished his amateur career with a 78-7 record, including 63 knockouts.

Since turning pro in 1992, Tua has gone 33-1 with 28 knockouts, his only defeat being a loss by decision to Ike Ibeabuchi in Sacramento in 1997 that cost Tua his World Boxing Council international heavyweight title.

Saturday, he fights for a much bigger prize, Lewis’ WBC and International Boxing Federation crowns, with Tua’s father watching him fight in person for the first time. Lewis weighed in at 249 pounds Thursday, Tua at 245.

The face of the man who once pulled a dusty television off the side of a road will now be plastered on every screen in his homeland.

Be assured, every Samoan set will be tuned to fight with every viewer clutching ulafala beads in prayer.

THE FIGHT

Lennox Lewis vs. David Tua

SATURDAY

Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas

for Lewis’ WBC and IBF heavyweight titles

Pay per view