Lani Daniels celebrates retaining the IBF Light Heavy World Title belt Wahine Toa II fight week. Photo: Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz
Lani Daniels will be inspired by the support of David Tua when she fights to become the undisputed world women's heavyweight boxing champion in Detroit on Sunday afternoon.
Hailing from Pipiwai in Northland, 37-year-old Daniels will be a firm outsider when she enters the ring at Little Caesars Arena against heavyweight world champion Claressa Shields.
Toppling Shields is a mountainous challenge, with the 30-year-old American former mixed martial arts fighter having held world championship titles across five boxing divisions, including becoming the holder of every heavyweight belt in February this year.
It is the biggest fight in the career of Daniels, who is the first New Zealand-born boxer of Māori descent to become a two-division world boxing champion. having defended the IBF light heavyweight title three times since clinching it two years ago.
IBF Heavyweight World Title Champion Lani Daniels (R) during her fight against Alrie Meleisea at Eventfinda Stadium in Auckland on Saturday 27 May 2023. Photo: Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz
If victorious - in what will be her first professional fight in the United States - she would become the first New Zealander to unify the world heavyweight boxing belts.
Daniels said she has drawn inspiration from other Kiwi fighters on the world stage - most recently former WBO men's heavyweight world champion Joseph Parker, along with leading women Daniella Smith, and Mea Motu.
However, she said no support had meant more than that from Tua, the Samoan-New Zealand power hitter of the 1990s and early 2000s, who fell just short of a world heavyweight title himself when beaten by Lennox Lewis.
New Zealand boxer David Tua in the leadup to his heavyweight world title fight against Lennox Lewis in Las Vegas. Photo: photosport
She first came across Tua in her early teens, more than a decade before picking up boxing gloves, and at a difficult period in her life.
Tua visited her younger brother Tukaha at a children's hospital where the boy was battling leukemia - a condition that would claim his life at the age of 11.
"[Tua] would go around the warden and take his belts and go visit kids and put a smile on their face," Daniels said.
"I just remember him coming to visit and how happy I was and the happiness it gave my family during that sad time.
"There's a photo of him and my little brother and one of my best friends. When I see that photo, it assures me that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing."
Her brother's name translates as 'standing strong' in te reo Māori and Daniels said she had to do just that.
Lani Daniels at D+L Events Boxing Fight Night in 2023. Photo: Andrew Cornaga / www.photosport.nz
Her Auckland training gym bears Tukaha's name and serves as a constant reminder.
Daniels said when she began boxing and started to build up her record, Tua would message her in support.
"He's just been so supportive with my journey," she said.
"That was always something I wanted to do is to be able to make people smile or make them feel happy regardless of what they're going through in life because we do face challenges in life that we have no control over but we have to cope with them."
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