Reid determined to not let defeat define her
Taranaki’s Tarn ‘‘The Terminator’’ Reid says she’ll be back after narrowly losing the vacant PBCNZ Super Lightweight title to Auckland’s Karen Te RukiPasene.
The fight went the distance, with Te Ruki-Pasene winning by a judges’ split decision following eight rounds of high energy boxing at Auckland’s Cordis Hotel on Saturday night, with both fighters giving no ground and not afraid to stand toe to toe trading blows in the centre of the ring.
Reid had stepped up a weight class for the fight which was her second crack at winning the belt after suffering a unanimous decision loss to Quinita Hatu in
2018. However, Te Ruki-Pasene, who won her debut bout in 2018 by TKO and had a win and a lose from her two pro fights, withstood some early dominance shown by Reid to eventually claim the victory.
Two judges scored the fight
77-75 in favour of Te Ruki-Pasene while the third scored it 77-75 for
Reid in the ‘‘The Fight to Glory’’ Glozier Boxing event, which included 14 corporate and four pro bouts.
While Reid looked the more aggressive in the early rounds, as the fight wore on Te Ruki-Pasene found her rhythm and started landing some strong punches.
The result was a bit of an anticlimax for Reid, who in November made history when she became the first New Zealand female boxer to claim the Australian National Boxing Federation’s Australasian Lightweight title after defeating Australia’s Rachel Loder.
However, the 41-year-old said she would let the loss define her.
‘‘Obviously I will sit down with my team this week and have a debrief.
‘‘I’m not going to stop chasing my dreams.’’
Reid said it had been a hard fight and she would take a break to rest her body before deciding her next move but she already had a couple of fights lined up.
‘‘There’s things that I didn’t do that I needed to do so I’ve got to work on that. I’m going to be as active as I can this year and any opportunity that arises I will take them whether it’s in New Zealand or overseas.
‘‘There has some exciting future.’’
The event was live streamed by Corvus Digital Media NZ and spokesman Michael Clifton said things had gone really well which was good for the company’s goals of broadcasting more combat sports events in the future.
‘‘We are really happy and we are now excited about what the next events are going to be like,’’ Clifton said.
‘‘The more you do the more you learn.’’ definitely been talk about the