Heart of the Nation: Alice Springs 0870

WHEN Michael Karaitiana's boxing tent rolls into town and challenges everyone to a punch-up, how could any red-blooded male resist?

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WHEN Michael Karaitiana's boxing tent rolls into town and challenges everyone to a punch-up, how could any red-blooded male resist?

If you're game enough to go three rounds with one of his fighters - known by pseudonyms such as the Humpty Doo Warrior, Man Dingo and Budgie Smuggler - you'll at least walk away with some have-a-go glory. And if you win the bout you'll walk away with a couple of hundred bucks, too.

That's Karaitiana in the black, microphone in hand as he begins his spiel at Alice Springs. He was born into this game. His grandfather, Roy Bell, started the boxing tent in 1924 and it's been in the family ever since. Aged six, Karaitiana began boxing local boys wherever they went and audiences would shower the mat with coins. Later, he learnt to spruik by studying old footage of Bell, who died in 1971. "It's in my blood," the 49-year-old father of five says. "It's who I am, it's what I am."

The tent is on the road for eight months a year, working the country show circuit through Queensland and the Northern Territory. Karaitiana carries eight permanent fighters and also picks up temporary blokes looking to earn a quid - miners from Mt Isa, ringers from Katherine, ex-pros, even backpackers. "They come from all walks of life but they're all hard men," he says. (No kidding: that fighter below him manages to look formidable even while dressed up like a punchy Santa.) It's tough being away for so long from his wife Mandy, who stays at home near Parkes, NSW, to put their girls through school, but their two sons, aged 16 and 20, fly up every year in their holidays to fight for him.

Like all his men they "know how to do the right thing", he says - which means going easy on punters who aren't much good at boxing, but hell for leather with those who are, and always shaking hands at the end.

It's an anachronistic spectacle, but the appeal is primal. "When I'm spieling and the drum's beating, the atmosphere is electric," Karaitiana says. "The young blokes in the crowd, half of them have earrings and are dressed like bloody girls, and we're challenging them to put their hand up for a fight. They can't quite believe what they're seeing."