The Trilogy: Lani Daniels vs. Tessa Tualevao III Clash on October 4 for the Vacant New Zealand Middleweight Title

From New Zealand Boxrec Editor – Benjamin Watt:

Daniels vs Tualevao III a week away

We just less than a week away before Geovana Peres defends her world title against Claire Hafner, but the main event isn’t the only thing we are talking about.

On the main undercard, Lani Daniels (4 – 2 – 1) will be taking on Tessa Tualevao (1 – 6 – 1) for the third time in their careers. They will be fighting for the vacant New Zealand Professional Boxing Commission Female Middleweight Title for the second time. The fight will be happening at Sky City Convention Centre on October 4th in Auckland, New Zealand. The event will be televised on Sky Sports New Zealand TV.

The first bout between the two happened back in September 2018 for the vacant Pro Box New Zealand Female Super Middleweight Title. This was Daniels fifth fight (at the time 3 -1) and this was Tualevao seventh fight all of her previous fight being loses and 1 no contest. Tualevao was only 18 at the time of this fight. Throughout the fight Lani out punched Tessa, apart from a couple of rounds. Daniels got the win clearly in the first fight.

See the fight here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezbnQ6i4q1Q

In the second bout, Lani Daniels just came off a loss from her world title fight against Geovana Peres and Tessa Tualevao just came off her first boxing win against number 8 in the world Trish Vaka and a Kickboxing win over former Muay Thai World Champion Gentiane Lupi. Tessa had also turned 19 at the time of this fight. Daniels tried to outpunch Tualevao again, however, she had learnt a lot since their last fight and had gained a lot of power, which gave Lani allot of trouble. The fight was so close which caused an upset of a draw, some say is controversial. This is controversial as both parties believed they won the fight. Lani Daniels trainer John Conway said “Was happy with the performance and not with the result. Pbcnz (the commissioning body of the event) really showed there lack of knowledge or fairness to the sport”. Tessa obviously thought differently of the results. After the fight, she said in an interview “I think I did enough to win, I got to be honest, I think shes the champion but I think I did that much extra. It is what it is…”

See the fight here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAVk7E7MdbU

Tessa Tualevao is taking a major risk as she is currently booked in a kickboxing bout tonight against Faith McMah with just a week out before her boxing fight against Lani.

This fight between the two can either make or break their careers. Even though Tessa is still 19 years old, another loss will make it that extra hard to climb the ladder to success. A lose for Lani Daniels would mean there would be one more rematch to break the three-way split in decisions.

When speaking to Daniels trainer, John Conway, regarding Daniels training the rematch he said “We more use to Tessa and her areas that leave her open. We have been training in these areas”. However, there are some concerns with the officiating that will be used in the fight night. John Continued “Think it’s more important to get judges that are in the sport for the right reasons. Lani and team give up a lot to prepare for a fight and boxing have health risks and has been slower this year. All we ask is a fair result as we train and fight with honesty”.

Lani Daniels vs Tessa Tualevao III will be happening on the Geovana Peres WBO World Light Heavyweight title defence against Canadian Claire Hafner. Other fights on the card will feature Herman Ene Purcell vs Viliamu Motusaga who are both Samoan born and have both lived in New Zealand, Trish Vaka vs Desley Robinson, and the returning Gentiane Lupi vs Karen Te Ruki-Pasene.