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The Tongan Terror
Not a wrestling great, and a man rarely remembered for his wrestling exploits, we have to admit Kitione Lave’s wrestling exploits in the late 1960s are almost invisible. Born Lavemai Kitione Takitau was, nonetheless, a great character fondly remembered by Sam Betts. Sam knew Kitione better than most because it was he that taught the Tongan Terror the rudiments of professional wrestling.
It was another combat sport, boxing, in which Kitione Lave excelled and gained fame. “He could really go,” said Sam referring to boxer Kitione. That professional boxing experience had started in Tonga, but had moved into first gear when he moved to New Zealand. The Queen of Tonga followed Lave’s career closely and also employed him at her palace.
Born in 1934, Kitione Lave, the Tongan Terror or Tongan Torpedo, was certainly one of the finest boxers to enter the wrestling ranks.
Lave outstrips even the important George Nuttall, the original Black Mask, in having defeated British favourite Nosher Powell, who Nuttall had been unable to overcome in their Royal Albert Hall encounter. Kitione Lave was outpointed by the great Brian London and had actually put away British Champion Don Cockell in the second round of their encounter – and Cockell had gone nine rounds with the undefeated Rocky Marciano.
Famous wrestling venue St James’s Hall Newcastle was the 1960 scene of a controversial boxing match where the referee stopped the fight deeming that both Lave and his Ghanaian opponent were “not giving of their best”.
In Britain Kitione Lave started wrestling in 1965, just a year after he had retired from boxing as the undefeated Pacific Heavyweight Champion. Though he had already been wrestling in Singapore a couple of years before that alongside Prince Kumali for promoter and noted super heavyweight, Emil “King Kong” Czaja.
Kitione served in the RAF, ran a gym at the base, a nightclub in Sheffield and even played a few games for Doncaster’s rugby league team. He returned to New Zealand in 1970 with his English wife, Patricia, who he had married in 1957. We found him wrestling in Auckland in 1971 before opening his own casino.
Kitione Lave died on 2nd June, 2006.
Page added 04/04/2024
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