Tai Tuivasa is the No. 6 ranked heavyweight in the UFC as of June 14, 2023. The 30-year-old from Australia is a former Australian Fighting Championship heavyweight champion and a former professional boxer. He played professional rugby for the Sydney Roosters before transitioning to combat sports.
Tuivasa is known as Bam Bam in the mixed martial arts circuit and is famous for his shoey celebrations
In This Tai Tuivasa Story…
Tai Tuivasa Quick Facts
| Name: | Tai Anthony Tuivasa |
| Age: | 30 years old |
| Date of Birth: | March 16, 1993 |
| Place of Birth: | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Nationality: | Australian |
| Height: | 188 cm ( 6 ft 2 in ) |
| Weight: | 119.75 kg ( 264 lbs ) |
| Reach: | 75 in |
| Fighting Stance: | Southpaw |
| Net Worth: | $1.5 million |
| Last Fight Purse: | $90,000 ( for UFC 271 ) |
| Instagram: | @bambamtuivasa 905K followers |
| Twitter: | @bambamtuivasa 110K followers |
Tai Tuivasa Record
Tai Tuivasa has a record of 14-5 with 13 wins by way of knockout. Tuivasa entered the UFC as an unbeaten 6-0 fighter. That means he is just 8-5 under the UFC, including an even 5-5 in his last 10 bouts. Four out of Tuivasa’s last five bouts have earned him a post-fight performance bonus.
Tai Tuivasa Stats
Below are Tai Tuivasa’s fight stats per ufcstats.com:
- Significant Strikes landed per 15 minutes: 4.10
- Significant Striking Accuracy: 49%
- Significant Strikes Absorbed per minute: 4.46
- Significant Striking Defense: 45%
- Average Takedowns Lander per 15 minutes: 0.00
- Takedown Accuracy: 0.00
- Takedown Defense: 52%
- Average Submissions attempted per 15 minutes: 0.00
Tai Tuivasa Early Career
Tai Tuivasa played rugby for the Sydney Roosters of the National Rugby League but quit because he acquired a gambling addiction. The night before he quit rugby, Tuivasa said that he was at the Star Casino and lost “about $20,000 to the pokies”.
“At one point in the evening,” he said. “ I honestly believed I’d make a million dollars. Yet when I finally walked out, I had nothing — not even enough money for a cab. And that’s when I decided I had to get out of rugby league. Get back with my family and a different way of living.”
That’s when he got into combat sports.
He made his professional MMA debut on July 6, 2012, at Australia’s Elite Cage Championship promotion. He recorded three first-round knockouts that year and did not fight again until December 2015 for the Urban Fight Night Promotion.
Per Shaun Sullivan, Tuivasa’s coach:
“Tai was just this big kid with a big personality, and this was even before we knew that we were going to be involved in the MMA scene or he would pursue it as a career,” Sullivan told ESPN. “And then Tai got involved in a little bit of fight training and I joined in for a bit of rugby league training in the offseason to stay fit and I fell in love with it.
“Tai was just naturally gifted and did really well at it — myself not so much. I had to work hard at it to get some tips and tricks to get a couple of wins on the board. But I had a teaching background and that made it an easy progression to fall into a coaching role and you could tell from an early age that Tai had something special. That’s when I took more of a role in making sure he could reach his full potential.
“We had our first fights together and went on a bit of a run, and then he had his first fight under me as his sole head coach when he was about 120kgs, before that, he was knocking everyone out and walking around at about 150kg. He won the AFC title and fought James McSweeney [in 2016] and then we got the call-up to the UFC.”
Tuivasa then won the AFC heavyweight title in his first fight for the organization. Four months later, he successfully defended the belt against former UFC fighter James McSweeney. Then it was on to bigger things in the UFC.
He extended his unbeaten record to 9-0 by winning his first three UFC bouts, including a unanimous decision win over former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski at UFC 225. But Tuivasa’s rise was halted when he lost consecutive bouts to Junior Dos Santos, Blagoy Ivanov, and Sergey Spivak.
With his UFC career hanging in the balance, Tuivasa won five consecutive bouts via knockout, including a huge stoppage win over Derrick Lewis at UFC 271.
Tai Tuivasa vs Derrick Lewis
On February 12, 2022, Tai Tuivasa took his biggest challenge ever in the UFC when he faced knockout artist Derrick Lewis at UFC 271.
While the bout presented a huge opportunity for Tuivasa to announce himself to the world, the Aussie fighter later admitted that he was drunk when he accepted the fight.
“I was on the piss; I was blind drunk,” Tuivasa said.” I didn’t notice until the next morning that Mick Maynard (UFC matchmaker) messaged me and I messaged back. He messaged: ‘Are you awake?’ and I was like ‘Yeah”, it was 4:30 in the morning.”
“And then I woke up to 20 missed calls from my manager, from my coach Sully, and s*** like that, so I was like, ‘Something must have happened. And then it came up, and why not? Why wouldn’t I? It’s a great opportunity.”
Tuivasa made the most of that opportunity when he knocked out Lewis in the second round of a back-and-forth fight. Bam Bam earned the Performance of the Night bonus for his elbow KO of the Black Beast, marking the third straight bout he won that award. It was the biggest win of Tai’s professional MMA career while it was a big blow to the Black Beast
who later admitted he had a hard time getting over it.
“The last fight took a lot out of me,” Lewis said in an episode of the show The DC Check-In with Daniel Cormier. “But I had to do a lot of meditation and put myself around a lot of positive people to help me get over the hump.”
Tai Tuivasa vs Cyril Gane
The win over Lewis propelled Tuivasa to a showdown with Cyril Gane in France, in a bout that determined the top contender in the UFC’s heavyweight division. Gane was coming off a loss to Francis Ngannou at UFC 270 for the undisputed UFC heavyweight championship. But with Ngannou’s future uncertain due to contract issues, the fight between Gane and Tuivasa was an important bout in the division.
Fighting in hostile territory, Tuivasa engaged Gane in a war that nearly saw the Australian finish the Frenchman in round two. But Gane recovered and turned the tables in round three where he landed several body kicks that eventually flattened Tuivasa. The victory earned Gane a title shot against Jon Jones at UFC 285 while Tuivasa lost for the first time since 2019.
Following the defeat, Tuivasa issued a statement:
“Shoutout to Ciryl, he was better than me last night. Or whatever night it was haha. Probably one of the best crowds I’ve ever performed in front of. The fans were crazy. Appreciate all the love. Shoutout to my team, my family who all came over. We’ll be back.”
Tai Tuivasa Next Fight
Three months after losing to Gane, Tuivasa returned to fight Sergei Pavlovich at UFC on ESPN 42. Pavlovich went on to knock out Tuivasa inside one round.
Currently, the UFC has not booked Tai Tuivasa for a fight. But last month, newcomer Jailton Almeida called out Tuivasa after defeating Jairzinho Rozenstruik at UFC on ABC 4 for his fifth straight win. Tuivasa has not responded to the challenge.
Tai Tuivasa Personal Life
Tai Tuivasa was born to Tony Tuivasa, a Samoan, and Kerry Johnson, an Australian. He was raised in the Western Sydney neighborhood of Mount Druitt. Tai has 11 siblings – four sisters and seven brothers.
Tuivasa has a son named Carter, who was born in 2017.
Carter’s mother is Brierley Pedro, the sister of UFC fighter Tyson Pedro. Tai Tuivasa and Brierley Pedro used to be a couple but Tuivasa’s social media accounts currently have no mention or photos of her. Some camps speculate that the couple may no longer be together, although that cannot be confirmed. But what’s certain is that the two were never married.
Tai Tuivasa Net Worth
Sportszion.com lists Tai Tuivasa’s net worth to be at $1.5 million as of 2022. As of February 2022, Taivasa has a listed career earnings of $1,004,500 per thesportsdaily.com. Tuivasa made $75,000 in guaranteed fight purses for his last bout versus Sergei Pavlovich last December 3, 2022. But his biggest recorded fight purse was $90,000 against Derrick Lewis at UFC 271. Including bonuses, Tai Tuivasa pocketed a career-best $241,000 for the Lewis bout.