Kiwi looking to welcome UFC "back to the realm of Tūmatauenga"

By Christopher Reive

Since he confirmed his spot on Dana White’s Contender Series, Aaron Tau’s pathway to a potential UFC contract has taken some turns.

The biggest of those came in early August when his proposed opponent for his UFC opportunity received a short-notice call-up to the promotion.

That left Tau (8-0) in limbo just over a month out from the September 18 (NZ time) date and without a bout in place - though that wasn’t something he was concerning himself with.

“That’s not my job. It’s above my pay grade,” Tau said.

“I just stick to the simple game, and I just asked Eugene [Bareman, City Kickboxing head coach] like ‘hey, do you know about this?’ He just said business as usual, so I took that lead and I’ve just stayed the path.”

Two-and-a-half weeks out from the bout, Tau had a replacement locked in, with American prospect Elijah Smith (7-1) signed to meet him in the headline fight of this week’s Contender Series card at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

Tau will be the third athlete from City Kickboxing to compete in this season’s series. Last week, teammate Navajo Stirling impressed with a second-round knockout to earn a UFC contract, while Australian Cam Rowston was beaten by unanimous decision in his bout earlier in the season.

While the Contender Series acts as a welcome into the UFC for some of the world’s most promising rising athletes, Tau sees it as an opportunity to “remind the world where the greatest fighters on Earth come from.”

“They think that they’re welcoming me into the UFC. I’m there to welcome them back to the realm of Tūmatauenga,” he said.

“We’ve been here for thousands of years. It’s like, you are coming to me, not the other way around.”

Tau, of Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Toro descent, will bring a new level of Māori culture to the wider UFC audience as he will look to become the first fighter in the promotion with a mataora - a facial tattoo representing one’s whakapapa.

For fans of the sport who are unfamiliar with Māori culture, displays such as pūkana during face-offs have often been polarising.

For Tau, this platform is one from which he hopes to launch himself into the UFC as well as create conversation and bring awareness to his culture.

“Negative people are going to have their say and it’s going to allow for conversations that we can have to enlighten and educate people, and then other positive conversations are going come from like indigenous people from all around the world, and it will just promote our culture in a positive light, no matter what,” he said.

“Rest in peace to the Māori King, one thing that he said in one of his speeches was like, we’ve just got to be Māori, we’ve got to speak our reo, we’ve got to uphold our customs. We’ve just got to be Māori, and by doing that, we will keep our culture.

“It’s a privilege to be able to carry this onto the world stage and have the opportunity to share this part of myself and this part of our culture and our way with the world. It’s cool.”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission