Tai Tuivasa walks into crowded rooms with his eyes lowered.

Not lowered far, he says.

But far enough to avoid any stares.

For in the world Tuivasa knows, nobody stares for reasons that are any good.

No, they stare because you owe cash. Or stole drugs.

Stole a girl.

A TV.

Whatever.

They stare because your shoes are shit. Or worth beating shit from you to get.

Staring makes a point. Sends a message.

Intimidates.

And how do you reckon any of this sits with a bloke dubbed Bam Bam?

Which is why, whenever anyone glared inside the Kingswood Hotel, when they glared at Mt Druitt Westfields or from one of those dozen steel benches outside his favoured Penrith bakery ... well, from somewhere deep down rose that same nagging question: What the f... are you looking at?

Still does.

Which is a problem.

Especially for an undefeated UFC heavyweight.

A tattooed knockout artist who jiggles his belly, chugs bourbon Shoeys and makes Octagon walks to Daryl Braithwaite’s Horses.

Unknown?

No, not since Twitter gave him the blue tick. And Reebok, a signature t-shirt range.

While as for Cronulla prop Andrew Fifita ... well, he even gifted an Origin bombshell on the fighter’s popular podcast.

And all while Bam Bam piles up corpses.

So people, they stare.

Everywhere.

Which as we said, is a problem.

For Tuivasa will always be a western Sydney houso.

A streetfighter, bruv.

A half-caste kid who, at seven, stole his first car. At eight, watched people shoot heroin.

A fighter who knows what it is to go hungry, and worse, while bouncing between homes, with two mums.

So sometimes, when out with mates, or partner Brierley, Tuivasa will see a guy staring and up it comes: What the f...k are you looking at?

Isn’t his fault.

Or that of anyone else.

The thought just ... arrives.

Which is why he now enters pubs, restaurants, whatever with those eyes lowered.

For fighting isn’t what Tuivasa does, so much as who he is.

A truth born from his genetics. His streets.

And from a Samoan ancestry tracing all the way back to warriors of Lauli’i .

And still, he wants to improve.

Grow.

For while he may be winning, Tuivasa hasn’t won.

Not yet.

Which is why he lowers those eyes.

Understanding, no, some things never change.

But let’s see what happens when others do...

STEALING CARS AND NURTURING THE FIGHT WITHIN

MAYBE if he were born darker, things would be different.

Easier.

Or even just easier to understand.

Aboriginal mum.

Samoan dad.

“And me,” Tuivasa shrugs, “a white baby”.

Whitest black fella in his family, too.

In Kingswood.

For all he knew, the whitest little black fella in all the world.

Can you imagine it?

Eleven brothers and sisters. Scores of aunts, uncles, cousins.

“And every one of them the same,” he says. “Everyone except me”.

Which hurt.

And far more than Tuivasa has ever let on.

“I don’t normally talk about this stuff,” the fighter concedes. “My family, I love ‘em.

“No one means more to me.

“But growing up white when everybody else is dark, it’s ... aaaaah ... hard.

“You’re around all these people who are the same. Every one of them but you.

“And being different, you’re tested. Constantly.

“Anything I’ve ever wanted, anything I believed was mine ... yeah, I’ve been made fight for it.”

Seated now at one of those dozen steel benches outside his favoured Penrith bakery, Tuivasa blends easily among the morning swirl of tradies, factory hands and those with little else to do but hang.

Grey sweat pants. White tee.

Black kung fu slippers.

And a smile.

Always wearing a smile.

And why not?

At 25, Tuivasa isn’t only in the UFC, but igniting it.

Two fights. As many wins.

And each, viciously, via first round KO.

Like against Cyril Asker, at UFC 221, when Tuivasa didn’t so much finish the Frenchman as render him unrecognisable. Same as last November, in his UFC debut, where he iced American Rashad Coulter with a flying knee so wild, it earned the Aussie a $50,000 bonus.

In seven professional fights, Tuivasa has never been beat. Or even gone beyond round one.

Which makes him new to you, sure.

And the UFC.

But fighting?

No.

Indeed, for as long as he can remember, Tuivasa has done little else.

Fighting to belong. To be heard.

Fighting back.

Fighting for fun, for food and, like every kid in Sydney’s west, to be filthy rich.

Fighting, it seems, for everything but that oldest of cliches ... the one about getting out.

“Oh, I’ll always be a f...ing houso,” Tuiavsa cackles, sipping coffee now from a white styrofoam takeaway cup.

“It’s what I’m from. What I’m about.

“I am these people.

“But while I’m comfortable here, does that mean I can’t win? Can’t be successful?

“F... that.

“Already, I’ve seen too much shit. Seen too many people die.

“So I’m choosing to live.”

Always has.

Like that afternoon, aged seven, and on an enforced hiatus from school, when little Tuivasa noticed the keys to mum’s old Proton sitting on his kitchen bench.

So guess what?

Out the door and gone.

Within 20 minutes, the heavyset schoolboy -- although still barely visible over the dash -- idling outside the gates of Glenmore Park Public, honking and shouting for his mates to come jump in.

“And within a year, I was driving all the time,” he shrugs. “Just getting out and doing shit. Living.”

Moved about, too.

“When I was born, dad lived in another house,” Tuivasa explains of his earliest years. “With his wife.

“But once everyone found out about me, well, she became my mum too.

“So I moved about a bit.

“My old man, he’s quiet. Humble.

“Doesn’t drink or swear.

“But my (birth) mum, you hear her before you see her.

“So we’re similar, both loud and proud.

“And when I was younger we’d often clash.

“So I’d pack up and shift out for a while. Go live with dad and my other mum.

“Or if he wanted me out, aunties, uncles, whatever.”

And again, Tuivasa loves his family.

All of them.

“But first time I watched someone I knew shoot heroin, I was eight,” he continues. “I could’ve walked away. But didn’t.

“I stayed and watched.

“Which is why I don’t tend to look back much. Sometimes it feels kinda shit.

“But I’m telling you now because my background, it’s also what drives me.

“What’s made me.

“Even as a little kid, I remember telling myself ‘there’s got to better than this. Has to be better’.

“Which isn’t to say I’m better than anyone else out here. I’m not.

“I’m just a westie saying, f... it, I’ll be whatever I want.”

HOW A $20K POKIE BINGE TURNED HIS LIFE AROUND

ROCK bottom was the final spin of that Star Casino poker machine.

What came up?

Tuivasa has no idea.

Nor does it matter.

For while the sun was coming up outside over Sydney Harbour, no Queen of the Nile feature did.

Nothing at all.

Which meant this young Sydney Roosters prop -- a kid on the cusp of NRL superstardom -- had in one gambling binge just blown $20,000.

Or everything he had.

“At which point,” he says, “I decided to quit rugby league”.

Which was no small thing.

“Oh, Tai Tuivasa could’ve played NRL,” says Peter O’Sullivan, the NRL recruiter who scouted him when aged 16 and 140kg. “And how long he stayed in first grade, that would’ve been entirely in his hands too.

“Tai really was a high end talent.

“Had size, obviously. But as a prop, he also boasted a skills set like few others.

“Incredibly athletic too.

“I can still see him running 70m for a try at the Sydney Football Stadium like it were yesterday.”

Another with fond memories is Braith Anasta, the retired Australian playmaker who, back in 2012, was Roosters captain.

“Oh, I remember Tai,” he laughs. “He was in the under 20s and, still, we were all scared shitless of him.

“But as a footballer, yeah, he had all the potential in the world.

“For a big guy, he had a real finesse about the way he played. It sounds funny to say now, but soft hands.

“So he was an NRL player, no doubt. He was a kid who had it all.”

Yet the quicker his reputation rose, the deeper this troubled young prop was descending into gambling binges. Which blended into drinking binges.

Then ugly fights on the field.

He was overweight. Underdone.

And now here midweek, on an almost empty casino floor, Tuivasa had finally rendered himself that gambling cliche.

Stripped of everything, including cash for the cab ride home.

And so rugby league’s Next Big Thing sheepishly called a mate and bludged a ride back to that Roosters Bondi sharehouse where he lived with the likes of now Fijian international Kane Evans and Warriors megastar Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.

And as they slept, he packed.

Then left.

“Because I needed to get back here,” Tuivasa says, nodding out into the morning crowd. “Back home.”

Which isn’t to say rugby league was the problem.

It wasn’t.

Just ask UFC light heavyweight Tyson Pedro, who back then was embarking on his own rise as a fighter when sister Brierley brought home a new boyfriend.

One that was cocky, loud and, since quitting the Roosters, unemployed..

“So, no, I wasn’t happy,” Pedro laughs. “Actually, I remember thinking ‘you son of a bitch, of all the girls in Sydney and you’ve had to go find my sister’.

“Growing up, our dads were actually close. Both of them, hard men.

“But even with our families being friends, Tai dating my sister still wasn’t the smoothest of transitions.”

And why?

“He wasn’t trying,” Pedro continues. “I remember by the time we met, he was already fighting.

“Being sponsored to train and fight, too.

“But still, Tai was overweight. Partying.

“I was really worried about where it was going to finish up.”

While Tuivasa refuses to blame rugby league’s oft debated culture for his initial fall -- “this was about me, the way I was choosing to live” -- he still hints at understanding the bouts of depression, even hopelessness, which has caused too many other NRL wannabes to fall.

Or worse.

“When you’ve got all these young boys living together, it sounds great,” Tuivasa says. “But really, you’re alone.

“You’re away from family and friends. Living on shit money.

“And then that NRL dream you’re chasing, the whole reason you’re here ... for some it starts drifting further and further away.

“It’s why rugby league f...s a lot of people up. Especially young Islanders.”

And why too many are, um ...

“Killing themselves? Absolutely,” Tuivasa continues, referencing a suicide problem that boasts not only its own Wikipedia page but three-year NRL study.

“And it’s because for those guys, there’s a family of 14 that needs them. That is relying on them to f...ing eat.

“So there’s no chasing dreams.

“If you’re no good at sport, you’re going to the warehouse. Or you’re going to stand on the door of some club.

“And that’s not right. That’s not how it should be.”

Which in part, is also why Tuivasa left.

On his terms.

“People often say ‘oh, you just quit on an NRL career’,” he continues. “But I didn’t. I’m not an idiot.

“That night in the casino, it was just a tipping point.

“I’ve always known I was meant to fight.”

‘I WAS STEPPING OVER BODIES... IT WAS DONE IN 10 SECONDS’

TAMA Te Huna remembers stepping over bodies.

Four of them.

A quartet of Gold Coast gym junkies who, this particular Saturday night, were laid out cold, and at least one of them snoring, on a Surfers Paradise backstreet.

“And I’m no fan of talking up street fights,” says Te Huna, one of Australia’s most respected MMA trainers.

“But if you want to know what Tai is capable of, I was there the night he was jumped by four guys. Big guys, who wanted to start trouble.

“He wasn’t in the UFC back then.

“They had no idea who he was.

“But by the time I got across to the fight, man, I was stepping over bodies. It was all done in 10 seconds.”

Which to this day, remains the most impressive Tuivasa performance he’s seen.

But quickest?

Um, no.

“That was eight seconds,” laughs Te Huna, whose Elite Fight Gym the heavyweight first entered overweight and unknown at 15.

“Tai was fighting at St Mary’s Band Club.

“I can’t remember against who. And you won’t find it on his record either.

“In fact, there’s a heap of fights which, for one reason or another, have never been recognised.

“Officially, they say Tai has fought seven times, but I think the number is more like 20.”

And all of them the same.

“By the time we walked out to the cage,” the trainer says, “it was usually time to turn back again”.

And why?

Well, more than being the son of famed Kings Cross bouncer Tony Tuivasa, more than boxing from age four or having his first streetfight soon after, Tuivasa boasts the genetics of an athlete seemingly born for nothing else.

Think the balance and speed of an Aboriginal fighter. Then mix it with Polynesian power.

Throw in too, that family tree whose branches stretch to the tiny Samoan village of Lauli’i.

Says Tuivasa: “My father’s village, my village ... we’re known for being violent people.

“It comes naturally.

“And when you go visit them, when you see how the people are there, yeah, I’m proud of that.

“It also helps me understand why I was raised like I was.

“If you wanna fight, OK, don’t talk. Fight.”

Which is what Tuivasa does.

Always has.

And long before anyone started paying him.

But as for how many streetfights? The heavyweight cannot say.

Nor does he want to.

Indeed, while most young toughs will lift the volume, and widen eyes, when recounting carpark stoushes, Tuivasa instead speaks barely above a whisper.

“When I was younger, I could have five fights a weekend,” he says when pushed. “And I know that sounds bad.

“People hear ‘street fight’ and immediately think, oh, you must’ve been going around mugging people. Looking to find trouble.

“But out here? Not necessarily.

“Out here you can make eye contact with another guy and he decides not to look away. And, me ... I’ve never been the guy who looks away first.”

Nor does he miss.

Just ask Jamie Te Huna, the retired UFC fighter who, along with his older brother, has cornered Tuivasa for many of his fights.

“Every heavyweight can punch,” Te Huna says. “But not every heavyweight can hit because they can’t hide a punch.

“But Tai, he hides his punches.”

Better, he sees them coming, too.

And adapts.

“People think Tai’s just this big brute who wants to walk you down and knock you out,” says Cronulla skipper Paul Gallen, who has sparred Tuivasa several times as part of his own undefeated boxing career.

“But while he probably walks around at 140kg, Tai boasts footwork, skill, incredible speed. And he’s smart.

“First time we sparred, I didn’t go too bad. But after that, yeah, he worked me out quick. Then, he was dominant.”

While Gallen once gave Tuivasa a black eye during sparring, rugby league’s best puncher has no doubts as to exactly where he stood.

“Thankfully for me, Tai was there to work, not prove himself,” laughs the veteran of 24 Origins and 32 Tests. “So often you get guys in sparring who want to knock you out. But Tai, he isn’t about that.

“And if he did spar the way he fights ... I dunno how many times I’d jump in with him.”

And still, an overnight sensation Tuivasa ain’t.

Understanding that after quitting the Roosters in 2012, this bulky heavyweight would then spend four years alternating through martial arts, boxing, kickboxing, streetfighting, even the short-lived Australian fight tournament, Combat8.

And like his hands, the choices often seemed chaotic.

Almost random.

NRL bad boy John Hopoate wanted at it in a cage? Cool. Kimbo Slice is headed Down Under? Call him out.

One particular night in Melbourne, Tuivasa even boxed three different heavyweights before eventually losing, on points, to then Australian champ Michael Kirby.

“But I don’t say no,” he says, “ to anyone”.

Which is also the attitude which put Tuivasa, when aged 20, into what is still the most important fight of his career.

And, no, like so many others this one doesn’t exist.

UFC officials wiping all Combat8 appearances given the fleeting promotion not only banned kicking and elbows, but permitted only 30 seconds of wrestling each round.

Yet if you want to understand The Ballad Of Bam Bam, go find that Youtube footage of a cool night in August, 2013, when he squared off against Peter ‘The Chief’ Graham.

An Aussie combat legend, who in 13 years, had warred through scores of fights, disciplines and opponents like Mighty Mo, Cheik Congo, even Mark Hunt.

“But me? I was just a cocky, young kid on a roll,” Tuivasa recalls. “Smashing everyone.

“So when someone asked if I wanted to fight Peter Graham, I said ‘yeah, who cares?’.”

And when Tuivasa rocked, then dropped The Chief in round one, well, there seemed little to do but call a cab to the after party.

But then Graham, he recovered.

And Tuivasa, he gassed.

Badly.

By late in the second, hands down, face bloodied and, just as the bell sounded, falling slumped, and beat, against the black mesh wall.

“Back then, the wins had been coming so easily,” he continues. “I went into that night still drinking, partying ... and I got my f...ing head punched in.”

Got more than that too.

“Growing up, my old man had always warned how lonely fighting was,” he says. “And that night, I finally understood what he meant.

“I’ve never been embarrassed to lose a fight.

“Like in life, you win some, you lose some.

“But that night, I’ve never been more embarrassed. I beat myself.

“And I promised it would never happen again.”

‘I’M NOT FAKE... I’M A F**KING HOUSO’

DRINKING bourbon from a stranger’s shoe is crazy?

Maybe.

But only if you’ve never sparred Mark Hunt.

At 18.

Back when Tuivasa, unknown and only recently expelled from St Dominic’s College, walked into the UFC heavyweight’s gym, donned gloves and started throwing down against a set of hands which, around that time, were breaking the jaw of Stefan Struve, hospitalising Bigfoot Silva, even giving Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson his first KO loss.

Apart from conceding 20 years to Hunt, Bam Bam was also behind some 50 professional fights.

And now, taking him on at dawn.

Part of Hunt’s 6am training routine which was quickly resembling Christians versus the lion.

“So you can imagine how many guys they’d already seen come and go,” Tuivasa says. “Don’t think they expected much of me either.

“I was a kid. Nobody knew me.

“But after that first round, I remember Mark’s trainer, Stevie Oliver, going ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, good work, let’s keep going’.

“So I did.

“And now, I’m here.

“I guess in my life, I’ve been dealt some hands that are bad. Others good.

“And that day I was invited to spar Mark Hunt ... yeah, it was a good one.”

Wasn’t it what?

Seven years on, Tuivasa hasn’t simply joined his mentor in the UFC, but arrived with the tag of Hunt 2.0.

Together, the close mates still spar often. And hard enough to warrant ticket sales.

But they don’t.

Just as nobody knows about Tuivasa starting every day with a 10km run. Nor the cardio workouts where, even at 120kg, he somersaults, cartwheels even does the splits.

Still, Tuivasa likes the ruse.

The myth.

Tai Shoeyvasa.

Like somehow this hulking, Kingswood houso has exploded into the UFC on little more than luck, lead hands and a loose fight plan all punch hard, party harder.

A deception stemming from that February night, at UFC 221 in Perth, when having destroyed Frenchman Asker in a tick over two minutes, when having exited the Octagon and moved to embrace a mob of boozey fans, Bam Bam was suddenly offered up a stranger’s sneaker.

Specifically, a white Adidas filled with black bourbon.

And so, he drank it.

Why not?

From where Tuivasa hails, the Shoey is nothing crazy.

Or new.

Think a Red Solo Cup for housos.

And still that image of Shoeyvasa went viral. Global.

Overnight, the fighter not only lighting up Twitter and Facebook feeds, not only earning a spot on UFC Tonight or praise from fellow Shoey exponents like F1 ace Daniel Ricciardo, but igniting a party boy persona on which the world now sees him.

“You know the question I get asked most?” Tuivasa says, already shaking his head at the impending answer. “It’s ‘do you even train?’.

“And the other one: So what happens if your fight goes beyond the first round?.

“I feel like saying, ‘well f... I only train five minutes so I’m hoping it doesn’t’.”

Still, you like the ruse right?

“Ah, people believe what they wanna believe,” Tuivasa grins. “And, yeah, I help paint a picture.

“Which isn’t to say I don’t get on the drink.

“I love it.

“Love partying as much as any other Aussie.

“And the guy you see on camera, that’s me. I’m not fake. I’m a f...ing houso.

“But when it’s time to work, man, I work hard.”

Just doesn’t tell anyone.

“If somebody on social media says ‘hey, were you out drinking last weekend?’ I just go with it,” he grins. “Say, yeah, of course I was on the piss.

“And I wasn’t. I was training.

“But nobody needs to know.”

Never have.

“People have underestimated Tai his entire life,” says Pedro. “He’s athletic, moves like a middleweight and has a knack of finding your chin.

“But all opponents ever saw was the belly”.

Queensland Origin forward Dylan Napa agrees, recounting how his former Roosters team-mate, who always took the field heavier than every rival, “would then win us games with his skill, not size”.

And as for the heavyweight’s manager Zen Ginnen, he points you to that entire year existing between Tuivasa’s last fight outside the UFC, and his first in it.

“Everybody sees Tai winning his UFC debut via flying knee,” Ginnen explains. “But what nobody saw was the year spent rehabilitating that knee prior.

“In the fight before his debut, defending the AFC heavyweight title against James McSweeney, Tai stuffed his knee so badly it required surgery. There were complications during the operation too, something happened to the nerves in his right arm which left it useless for some time.

“So there were plenty of hard days. Dark days.

“But nobody sees that.”

So the truth then?

“Look, I’m not a competitive person,” Tuivasa shrugs. “In fact some of my trainers, they actually get angry with the fact I’m not competitive at all.

“But when it comes to fighting, I’ve got this weird confidence in myself. I’ll never lay down.

“Never have, never will.”

Yet still, Tuivasa needed a switch.

A tiny spark which, right now, runs about the edge of our table, smiling and laughing inside a red jumper with On Top Of The World across the front.

Only 17 months old, Carter-Jesse Tuivasa has already travelled to three countries. Enjoyed the type of Christmas too, dad never saw even in dreams.

Which is apt.

“Because the moment I found out I was becoming a father, everything in my life changed,” Tuivasa explains. “After that loss to Peter Graham, I’d knuckled down a bit.

“But knowing I was becoming a dad, that’s when I realised it wasn’t just about me anymore.

“Given everything that happened with me as a kid, I thought f..., this is it. Time to have a crack.”

Better, Tuivasa is making his changes in Kingswood.

Adamant little CJ, he will grow up in the same suburb dad did. Among the same people.

Proving that life out here, it doesn’t have to exist as yet another episode of that Struggle Street documentary which, twice now, has controversially highlighted life inside Mt Druitt housing commission.

Says Tuivasa: “One of my brothers, he lives on the same street as some families they showed. Right across the road”.

And as for his thoughts on the program?

“That show,” he says, “it’s just another way for people to laugh at us”.

Which is why every time he wins a fight inside the Octagon, Tuivasa makes a ‘W’ symbol with his fingers, for Western Sydney.

“I want my son to be proud of where he’s from,” he continues. “I want it for every kid out here.

“Yes, you were born in Kingswood. In Mt Druitt.

“Be proud of that.

“Too often young people out here get caught in a cycle. Dad or uncle goes to jail, comes out, goes back, then its your brother, then it’s you.

“So they give up.

“Dad was good at footy but he had a dozen kids. Uncle was good but he did time. Or drugs.

“I’m good too ... but.

“So f... that.

“Yes, we’re from here. But you get to choose what happens.”

Which is why Tuivasa carries his Samoan ancestry on that elaborate pe’a inked about his thighs. And for Octagon walks, an Aboriginal flag around his shoulders.

It’s why he wakes at 5am to train. Why leaves the family for seven-week camps in Thailand.

And why he uses phrases like eshay in Octagon interviews.

Don’t know the meaning?

Look it up.

That way you can learn with him.

This fighter breaking cycles. Changing attitudes.

And walking into rooms with eyes lowered.

“Because sometimes I’ll still see a guy staring and think ‘f..., what are you looking at?’,” Tuivasa concedes. “It just happens.

“So I keep my head down.

“Avoid confrontation.

“Plus, you know, maybe he’s just staring because he knows who I am. Maybe he’s seen me fight. Or is a fans of the UFC.”

And if it were something worse?

“Well, I’ll never be the one who looks away first,” Tuivasa shrugs. “Some things change, some don’t.”