By Dave Spencer
The last time most of North American audiences saw super-bantamweight Tyson Cave (29-3 12KO) was an ESPN broadcast almost three years ago. Cave deserved a better decision fate that night in a WBA (interim) championship bout where he would lose a highly contested split decision to Oscar Escandon.
Broadcaster Teddy Atlas championed his cause and railed against the judges in Temecula California fight and while it would be anything but foolish to think that anything would be changed or overturned, it was thought at the very least the Halifax fighter had shown enough to showcase his talents and boxing abilities to prove he belonged to hang near the top of the division.
Surely we would be seeing him again in a high profile fight, right? Not so, Cave who returns tonight versus Aramis Solis (16-5 9KO) in Shediac, New Brunswick after a year away from action has been left scrambling to find fights and trying to get back to level he was at before the Escandon fight.
“I had some legal issues over the last year or two years where nobody wanted to touch me,” Cave told Fightnews of a barroom incident on New Year’s 2014 that cave was found innocent this past June.
“They took my passport from me but I always kept training even if I couldn’t get a fight and the phone started ringing the day after the trial. Now I have to prove the naysayers wrong as to whether I can do it again, can I get back? That’s what I’m here to prove, that I deserve another opportunity on a big network.”
At 35, Cave realizes the clock is ticking.
“This is it, this is the last chapter of the great Tyson Cave. I got to ESPN, got ripped off, and it was downhill from there. Can I get back to that spot? That’s the battle. I’m 35 but feel like 25, I took punishment one time in my career versus Willie Casey (in 2010 stoppage) and that’s because I thought I was invincible. That loss woke me up and ever since then I train harder, I run harder, I spar harder. I’ve never taken punishment except for that one time, and it woke me up. And I’m here to prove I deserve that chance again.
“I thought I was going to get another shot, maybe I would have if this legal problem didn’t happen. But it happened and I was not guilty and only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve put that past me and only know that whoever is at 122 or 118, I think I deserve a shot, and I don’t care who you are, I want to fight you. I don’t say I’m going to knock you out, but I will tell people I’m going to embarrass you, which I do, I can embarrass anyone.”
Should Cave get by Solis tonight, he has a new deal penned that will garner him regular action. “I just signed a deal where I’m fighting Victor Proa (28-3-2 21KO) on October 21st on Member Two Indian Reserve in Cape Breton, hopefully for the NABO title so I can back ranked in the world and I can feel like a human again. I’m not looking for journeymen anymore, I’m looking for a name, and hopefully by the start of 2018 somebody steps up and gives me shot. I’m not one to complain, but I’m getting old and cranky, I gotta start complaining. I know this is a business but at the end of the day you got have some morals; c’mon this is boxing. I’m not that guy just hollering, I’m not a Facebook fighter, I’m ready to fight guys.
“They told me after Escandon that I’m going to have to start knocking guys out. So my last five fights I knocked out four of them. Do people think I can’t fight? Do people think I don’t train? I don’t lose. I sound like a dickhead saying it but I don’t. And then when you tell me to knock guys out, I knock them out. I just need people to tell me what I have to do to get another shot.”