Comeback capped with pro title
A New Zealand fighter says he now has a ‘‘target’’ on his back after emerging from a four-year retirement to win a professional boxing title.
Napier’s Beau O’Brien, 27, beat Siliveni Nawai by a technical knockout in the fifth round in Nadi on June 23 to take the World Boxing Foundation’s Australasian middleweight crown.
It was his first major fight since returning to the gym last year, when he told Hawke’s Bay
Today he had unfinished business in the ring after quitting due to business and family commitments.
‘‘I compare it with cigarette smokers who struggle to give up,’’ he said.
Nawai was the favourite in Fiji after winning all 11 of his professional bouts – eight by knockout.
But O’Brien stopped him in the fifth round to stun the 2000-strong Nadi crowd.
‘‘It’s always a challenge, stepping out of your own backyard and fighting in someone else’s backyard in a higher weight division,’’ O’Brien told One News yesterday. ‘‘[But] no risk, no reward.’’
O’Brien’s trainer Rod Langdon told One News that his charge looked the least likely fighter among a group of six friends when he ‘‘waddled in [to the Napier Boxing Club gym], a little bit overweight for a 14-year-old’’.
But O’Brien took to the sport and fashioned a respectable amateur career, winning 10 of 20 fights, including the national welterweight title in 2007.
After turning pro, Maxwell had four wins and a draw, with the highlight being his New Zealand Professional Boxing Association light middleweight title victory in 2013, as a 22-year-old.
He had his last bout in 2014 before electing to focus on his family, including two young daughters, and his business.