Sports correspondent & historian with Sideline Sid

The big news in New Zealand sport last week, for this avid boxing fan, was the announcement that Joseph Parker was to join the David Nyika team in promoting Nyika in a multi-fight deal.

David Nyika is entitled to be ranked alongside 1928 Olympic welterweight champion Ted Morgan, Olympic silver medallist Kevin Barry Jnr and David Tua as the best amateur boxers produced in our country.

Nyika first came to prominence when he defeated a Ukrainian boxer at the 2011 World Junior championships, before a narrow defeat to a Russian fighter.

Back-to-back gold medals at the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games saw Nyika become the first (and only) Kiwi boxer to win two Commonwealth Games boxing titles.

David’s road to the 2020 Olympic Games kickstarted with the Asia/Oceania Olympic qualifying tournament, held in Jordan in very early 2020, just before Covid-19 shut down the world.

First up he received a unanimous decision against a Syrian opponent, before beating an Uzbekistan boxer in the semifinals to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

David Nyika became just the fourth New Zealand boxer to win an Olympic medal, at the 2020 Olympic Games that were rescheduled for July/August 2021.

Two unanimous decisions against Moroccan and Belarusian fighters advanced Nyika to the semifinals, where he faced off with eventual gold medallist Muslim Gadzhimagomedov from Russia.

Nyika was in the fight all the way through the three rounds of combat, however the Russian fighting under the Russian Olympic Committee flag took out the contest by way of a 4-1 points decision.

While the Kiwi boxer lost his last four contest, Olympic boxing rules give the beaten semifinalist a bronze medallion.

After turning to the professional ranks shortly after his Olympic success, David scythed through his opponents in his first eight fights with just one bout gaining the distance in his cruiserweight division.

With Olympic credentials in his pocket, and an unbeaten record, he faced the first biggest test of his fledgling professional career in May 2024.