Boxer Tupuola Ato Plodzicki-Faoagali is now contemplating whether to become a full-time professional boxer or continue to fight as an amateur to pursue an Olympic medal.

"What's next? I will go back home and rest for two weeks and then get back to work. Perhaps think about whether to continue to fight amateur boxing or go full-time as a professional boxer," he said.

"The Paris Olympics experience was okay considering what had happened. It wasn't the best experience but you got to thank God for every opportunity even if it's not how we imagined it, it's just how God planned it."

Ato lost his first fight which happened just days after the death of his coach in Paris.

"It wasn't the best experience for obvious reasons with the passing of our national boxing coach a day before my fight, I also arrived in Paris too late which was four days prior to my first fight, and this was not enough time for my body to adjust to Paris time which is 11 hours behind Samoa," he said. 

"I was not fully acclimatised to the timezone and jet lag was a major problem. But I will not use that as an excuse but just to make it clear what I had to go through."

"My father wanted me to pull out of the fight, and team Samoa management also understood if I declined the fight, but I know coach Lionel would have wanted me to fight on and I also didn't want Samoa to see that I had pulled out of a fight.

"I am a warrior, I love to fight. Even though mentally I was struggling and my body wasn't acclimatised enough with little sleep in four days I knew that I could not go all that way and not fight."

According to Ato, the fight would have been so much easier if it weren't for the reasons he had mentioned.

"I really felt that I had better fitness than him, skills and preparations because I was hurting him to the body that's why he kept running in the last round, but that's boxing, it all depends on how we turn up on the day, and it just wasn't my day and week leading up."

For now, the boxer is back home in Australia and deciding where to from here. If he goes down the professional path, he may never get to represent Samoa at the Pacific Games and the Olympics.

Staying in the amateur division could become a financial struggle and he would be past what is considered a prime-age in boxung if he goes professional after the next Olympic Games.