Aska bites off more than he can chew
“Don’t worry guys, I had my tetanus shot.”
It wasn’t close to Mike Tyson on Evander Holyfield but David Nyika brushed off his own biting incident to easily progress through his first-round fight at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games yesterday.
Four years ago Nyika secured gold as a light heavyweight in Glasgow but has since moved up to the 91kg heavyweight ranks.
In his first bout here, he claimed a unanimous 5-0 points win over Antigua and Barbuda’s Yakita Aska but the messy fight was overshadowed when Nyika was bitten on his chest.
“It wasn’t my best performance but I put that down to my opponent being quite negative. I was ready to put on a clinic and showcase my potential. He wouldn’t exchange properly; he ducked his head, he bit me, he hit me below the belt,” Nyika, the 22-year-old from Hamilton, said.
“He apologised after the bout. It was an intentional bite and he knows it but that’s the sport, it’s kill or be killed.”
Nyika rocked Aska on several occasions, forcing his opponent into survival mode from the first round.
As both fighters were wearing mouthguards, Aska’s bite didn’t pierce skin.
Nyika didn’t seem too perturbed when he joked in a post on social media afterwards saying not to worry because he had his tetanus shot.
Facing one of the gold medal favourites, Aska admitted he was nervous.
“He is one of the best. He won gold at the last Commonwealth Games so it was a bad draw for me. He is a very strong kid.”
Nyika dyed his hair bright blond before the Games and, with it, accepted the nickname “a pint of Guinness’’ — apparently because of the beer’s long, dark, strong properties.
Despite the controversy, Nyika was pleased to progress.
“It was a big step. It was important just to get it out the way,” he said.
“My first bouts in these types of tournaments are never my best but it’s a wakeup call and my next one will be much more clinical and I’ll keep a level head.”
Nyika faces Cameroon’s Christian Ndzie Tsoye in Tuesday’s quarterfinals, with a possible semifinal against England’s Cheavon Clarke, an opponent he knows from his time with the British Lionhearts in the World Series Boxing.