Hometown hero, Tai Tuivasa will feature in the co-main event of UFC 293, as he faces off against UFC veteran Alexander Volkov.
Ahead of the event, we take a closer look into what makes Tai Tuivasa such a fan friendly attraction. We review the fighter, the athlete and the ‘Shoey’ drinker as a total package.
Tai Tuivasa – ‘Bam Bam’
Tai Tuivasa is a lovely, lovely man. ‘Bam Bam’ on the other hand, is as the name suggests. He is an all-out wrecking machine. Tuivasa has only been to the judges scorecards twice in his entire MMA career. What’s more impressive, is that he has had 19 fights. 17 of those 19 have finished inside the scheduled distance. 12 of those, didn’t even make it out of the first round. ‘Bam Bam’ Tuivasa is entertainment personified. Either he goes, or you go.
It isn’t only his knockout power that makes Tuivasa an attraction though. Tai is a good guy, a nice guy. He is fun on the microphone and speaks well during fight week. He walks out to the octagon into a packed out arena to the sound of ‘Barbie Girl’. If he wins, he grabs a beer and saliva filled shoe and drinks it to the delight of the crowd.
Tuivasa is loved. The main reason for his adoration? He is relatable. He is real and he is authentic. Something which the viewing public adore. Our sport is defined by characters such as Colby ‘Chaos’ Covington. We have outspoken characters like Sean Strickland, and these people are great for the sport. After all, this is the ‘entertainment’ industry. Tuivasa though, is guaranteed entertainment. Win, lose or draw… and he never draws. Yet, he does it in his own authentic way.
A Man of the People
He trains hard, he works hard, of course. But he also loves a beer, he loves to joke around with his friends, he loves to eat and people can relate to that and get behind that.
Tuivasa is a man of the people. The every day man struggles to keep a nutritional and balanced diet, loves to go to the pub with their mates and eat a pizza, and more than likely, hates the concept of going to the gym. So when we see Tuivasa in there. He talks like a regular person, he behaves like a regular person, he drinks a beer when he wins just like a regular person.
One thing he doesn’t do, is fight, like a regular person.
Tai Tuivasa – The Comeback
Tai is currently ranked at number six in the heavyweight rankings, something that would have been a hard-sell back in October 2019. Tuivasa was now coming off his third consecutive defeat. A TKO to Junior Dos Santos. A unanimous points decision to Blagoy Ivanov and now, he had just been submitted by Serghei Spivac. Tuivasa’s road towards the top seemed to be losing traction. Prior to these three consecutive losses, Tuivasa hadn’t even tasted a defeat in MMA. In fact, Tai was on a nine fight win streak where he had won the first eight of those inside the first round. He outpointed Andre Arlovski, before finally tasting defeat at the hands of Dos Santos.
That in itself, seemed to momentarily derail Tuivasa and the belief he had in himself. One year later, ‘Bam Bam’ returned to the cage and to winning ways. He knocked out Stefan Struve in the first round and the train was once again on the move. A TKO over Harry Hunsucker followed before knocking out Greg Hardy, Augusto Sakai and fellow banger Derrick Lewis, back-to-back-to-back.
‘BAM’ It Happened Again
Tuivasa was flying and was now within touching distance of the title… and then… BAM! It happened again. Tai came up against his toughest test to date in Ciryl Gane. Gane had just lost for the first time in a title fight against Francis Ngannou and was returning in front of his home fans at UFC Paris. The fight was lively, with both men happy to exchange blows in front of a rowdy French crowd. It was Tuivasa though who would land first, dropping Gane to the canvas heavily but the home fighter was able to survive the onslaught. In the final round, it was Gane who found the money shot, knocking Tuivasa out and moving on to once again challenge for the title.
For Tuivasa, it was back to the drawing board. A big, frightening, heavy hitting Russian drawing board, named Sergei Pavlovich. Pavlovich was in destructive fashion and wasted no time in getting Tuivasa out of there in the very first round.
Breaking the Mold?
Tuivasa has been in this position before. He was riding the wave of an impressive winning streak, before falling to three consecutive defeats. Here he is once more, after riding the wave of an impressive winning streak, he sits with back-to-back losses. Staring right down the barrel of another third consecutive defeat.
Can Tai break what appears to be his ugly pattern? If he is to do so, it will come at the expense of UFC veteran heavyweight Alexander Volkov. Volkov, on the other hand enters the bout following two impressive back-to-back round one TKO victories against Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Alexander Romanov.
Ironically, Volkov has a pattern of his own. If you go back to his loss to Derrick Lewis in 2018, Volkov went, Loss-Win-Loss-Win-Win-Loss. With that last loss coming at the hands of Ciryl Gane. If you were to use that loss to Gane as the start point, Volkov has gone Loss-Win-Loss-Win-Win-…
Now lets be honest, that isn’t how MMA math works, in fact, MMA maths doesn’t work, period. It does however, show the mentality of both fighters. Volkov is ‘hit and miss’ over his last ten fights. Whereas right now, Tuivasa looks to be on another difficult run of ‘misses’.
One thing that we can always count on with Tai Tuivasa though, is that if he can ‘hit’, rather than ‘miss’, it could be lights out for Alexander Volkov… And let’s be honest… Who doesn’t want to see ‘Tui’ do a ‘Shoey’ at home, in front of his own people.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
