Video: Sonny Bill Williams becomes New Zealand heavyweight champion in his spare time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRo2pwh48ys

When he’s not busy doing ridiculous one-handed offloads or powerful hand-offs, Sonny Bill Williams likes to indulge in a spot of pugilism, and he’s quite good at it too.

Last night, he became the heavyweight boxing champion of New Zealand after defeating journeyman Clarence Tillman with one swing of his left hook and the referee put Tillman out of his misery before the bell sounded for the end of the first round in Hamilton.

It hasn’t taken an awful long time for Sonny Bill to climb to the top of the ladder in New Zealand heavyweight boxing. Last night was his fifth professional bout and he has won them all, three of them by knockout.

His last fight was in June against a 43-year old a little on the tubby side, while the hardly svelte Tillman was a late replacement for another New Zealander, Richard Tutaki, who had to withdraw after being arrested on drugs charges.

It’s not Sonny Bill’s fault that the quality of heavyweight boxing in New Zealand is a far cry from the standard of rugby, but there wasn’t much to shout about in the fight last night, the ‘highlights’ of which you can see in the video above.

In fact, there was probably more incident at the pre-fight weigh-in (see below). Certainly it was the only decent shot that Tillman landed on Sonny Bill over the last couple of days.