Tai Tuivasa | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Tai Tuivasa has some slimming down to do before his next fight.

The veteran heavyweight contender is currently mired in a five-fight slump and is yet to be booked for a fight in 2025. That’s likely to remain true for the remainder of the year as the 32-year-old Australian admitted in an interview on The Ariel Helwani Show that while he hopes to resume his career soon, he’s well over the limit for his division.

“I’m going to go back into the cage,” Tuivasa said. “I’m going to aim for the start of next year.”

“Look at me, I need to get back in the gym,” he continued. “I need to get ready. I’ll be 140 kg [approx. 308 pounds], easy. It’s big, whatever it is, I don’t know, it’s big.”

Tuivasa has a lot of work to do in and out of the cage to reach his goals. Following a surge of wins from 2020-2022 that saw him rattle off five straight knockouts, he now finds himself slipping in the other direction. Since a knockout of Derrick Lewis that put him on the cusp of title contention, Tuivasa has fallen to contenders Ciryl Gane, Sergei Pavlovich, Alexander Volkov, Marcin Tybura, and Jairzinho Rozenstruik.

Tuivasa’s slump is a major reason why he decided not to rush back into competition after fighting this past August.

“Definitely, that’s why I needed this break,” Tuivasa said. “I feel much better now I’ve had this break. It’s kind of grounded me a little bit in what I want to do. I’ve been going hard in my businesses and stuff like that, so it’s definitely given me some time away from training and from fighting, but we’re fighters, so it’s naturally in me and I’m kind of missing it now.

“I definitely want to get back into it, but I want to come back and I’ve got something to prove. I’m not done yet.”

The loss to Rozenstruik was particularly disheartening as Tuivasa put on a listless three-round performance before losing a decision (a split call only thanks to an egregious scorecard from Howie Booth that resulted in Booth immediately being relieved of his judging duties for the evening).

Tuivasa doesn’t just regret losing, he regrets going to a decision at all.

“I think after the last fight where I was like, ‘F*ck, I should have smashed him,’ I was like, ‘I need a break to get back to why I want to do this,’” Tuivasa said. “Winning is winning and losing is losing, but going out there, it takes a toll on you, it takes a toll on your team, I needed to just get back to ground level. I kind of feel like I’m back there now. The only thing is I’ve got a bit of kilos on.”

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