AS his trainer points out, the story of Sakio Bika — The Scorpion— could make a great movie.
Boy grows up in a family of 10 in Cameroon, Africa, leaves home to learn boxing, becomes an African amateur champion, represents his country at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, asks his parents if he can stay in Sydney, meets a Sydney girl, marries and has children, lives at Kogarah, rises through the professional ranks and becomes world super middleweight champion.
Today, Australia's only present world boxing champion but you would hardly know it.
Without the media pull of past champs such as Jeff Fenech, Kostya Tszyu, Danny Green or Anthony Mundine, he is virtually a forgotten champion in his adopted country, outside boxing circles, of course.
Although no-one wants to fight this hard-hitter in Australia, Bika's bread and butter is spread thinly, his income depending almost entirely on the whims of less than scrupulous American promoters.
"He's been treated pretty ordinary overseas, since he won the IBO [the less-recognised International Boxing Organisation title] in 2008," said his Caringbah trainer, David Birchell.
"A modest world
champion, with that smile"
"Sakio almost got the chance to win his WBC [the main World Boxing Council] world title last year by accident, then they did everything to try and take it off him.
"Yet, he doesn't complain. He walks around the streets here with his head held high, a modest world champion with that smile for anyone he sees."
Bika won the world title last June in the US when he defeated Marco Antonio Periben by a majority 12-round decision.
Was he treated like a champ? Poorly, if Birchell's account is only half-right.
"One of the problems is that Sakio has the same [American] manager as unbeaten American Anthony Dirrell and a few others in the US," Birchell said. "He needs a US man to get him the big fights.
"But it turns out Dirrell was matched up for Sakio's first title defence in the US, well before we knew about it. I only found out by chance, reading it online, just two weeks before the planned fight date. Dirrell got six weeks to prepare, and Sakio got two."
Whether by design or coincidence, Bika suffered a shoulder injury and the fight had to be postponed.
"It was cra.a.a.zy"
When it did go ahead on December 7, the fight proved a brutal battle, with both men hitting low, and both seeing the canvas.
Although most judges had Bika ahead at the end of the 12th, the fight was scored a draw. Bika isn't particularly happy but at least a draw meant he kept his world title belt.
"Most anywhere else the challenger has to prove superior to the champion to get a draw or a win," Birchell mused.
Bika's return to Cameroon recently, his first trip back to his old home country since winning the world title last year, again demonstrated the importance of sport and sporting champions such as Bika, especially in poor countries.
Although well and truly an Australian citizen [2006], Bika was mobbed at Douala airport on arrival with his WBC belt and then treated like royalty during the rest of his stay.
"It was cra.a.a.zy; they treat me like some rock sta.a.ar," drawled Bika in his thick African accident. "All these fans come from everywhere. Then I met the governor, the minister of sport. I saw young men in my old gym boxing and smiling, and my mother and [seven] brothers and sisters." His father died three years ago.
"He's got to dance with the devil"
Back in Sydney with one of his younger brothers, Bika has to play the waiting game before getting a chance to defend his title.
"He's got to dance with the devil," is Birchell's apt description of trying to deal with American boxing promoters. Remember Don King?
For all his lack of recognition in Sydney, Bika would still desperately love to defend his title, just once, in Sydney, in front of his family and friends.
Aged 35 in another month, time might be running out, although Bika — who as a sparring partner helped prepare former world champion Daniel Geale for his successful fight last week against Garth Woods — swears he's getting "better with age."
"I sit down with my wife and talk every year, and she's happy," he says. "She says: 'You're the boss'. She knows I'm fit, I've never been hurt and never had any real bad injuries. I think 3-4 more years, maybe. Australia is our home, so I'd love one [title] defence here."
Birchell has little doubt which fight he would pick. "Carl Froch, the IBF and WBA super middleweight champion ... if Sakio beats him, Sakio then unifies the belts but they would make Sakio fight overseas for that one, for sure."
Today, another gym session finished, Sakio's not waiting around for any "devil". A football player in Douala before he became a boxer, Bika instead leaves the gym to drive his brother to Newcastle so they can watch Sydney FC play the Jets in the A-League.
They leave, all white teeth and wide smiles. See related stories: