BoxRec

A Fijian guy was once drunkenly extolling to me the virtues of a Fijian heavyweight from the 70s who he said was top class, only couldn't get the cash backing to help him make it. He said he fought some "top names" and lost, but would have done better if he'd been looked after.

Anybody know who this might have been?

There was a welterweight who was from Fiji who was near contender status called Sakria Ve he fought Clyde Gray twice for the commonwealth title. I get that all the time, especially of drunk blokes in pubs... mixin up weight divisions and fighters.

'You know who i'm on aabbaaat don't ya? that scottish middleweight who won the world middleweight title in the 1980s'

'errrrrrrrm... gary jacobs... but he was a welterweight and he only..'

'Thats him, barry mcguigan! he would always sing after his fights!'

I think Apollo Sweet was Fijian-Australian but that was the 1980s and he was cruiserweight.

He was probably talking about Mani Vaka. Mani won most of his fights up to 1974, losing a points decision to Mike Weaver and being KOed in 5 by Oscar Bonavena. He beat Foster Bibron, Bill reeves and world rated light heavyweight Trevor Thornberry.

Well handled he may have done well, but I think he was pretty much run by Ernie McQuillan, which meant he was used as a chopping block much of the time.

My mistake, I just looked Mani up and he comes up as Tongan.