The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Is Anthony Mundine the real deal? No way.

31st May, 2008
Advertisement
Expert
31st May, 2008
12
7163 Reads

Anthony Mundine defends his WBA super middleweight title against Nader Hamdan - AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

Some of us can probably remember watching on flickering black and white television Tony Mundine, father of the flashy Anthony Mundine, fighting Carlos Monzon for the World Middleweight title way back in 1974.

The tallish, wiry Monzon, who could absorb punishment like a giant sponge absorbing blood, has been ranked as one of the great middleweights of all time.

Tony Mundine, a chunky, hard-hitting and skillful fighter, was in the same class, except for the physical weakness of a glass jaw. In the seventh round of their title fight, Monzon finally cracked Mundine on the jaw and the fight was over.

Thirty-four years later Tony Mundine’s son, Anthony, is making claims for himself as the “read deal” and “the greatest” that would put him in the same category of greatness as Carlos Monzon. On the evidence of his career so far, and his latest fight against Sam Soliman at Melbourne’s Vodaphone Arena, Anthony Mundine has the talk but he doesn’t have the fight.

He fights with his hands low, in the lazy manner of Muhummed Ali. He talks to his opponents, again like Ali. He has a flashy array of punches and good hand speed, but not much of a punch. But unlike Ali, he gets smacked a lot by fighters like Soliman who would rate as ordinary club fighters in the USA.

He does have a terrific jaw, though, unlike his father. There were some slow-motion shots of head punches landed by Soliman that showed the face-cheeks exploding and then deflating like punctured balloons with the force of the blow.

One shudders what to think what Carlos Monzon or Tony Mundine would have done to the gutsy Sam Soliman. Certainly the journeyman battler would not have gone the distance with these two greats, who did well enough – in his own mind – to claim the victory.

Advertisement

Anthony Mundine’s real talent as a fighter has been to create such an unattractive public persona, based on what the Sydney Morning Herald’s excellent sports writer Richard Hinds calls a “faux Ali routine,” that large crowds turn up to his fights in the hope that someone will zip his lips.

Anthony Mundine can claim, though, that he has won a World Title, an achievement that escaped his father and Dave Sands, the wonderful boxer of the 1950s who was tragically killed in a car accident before he could translate his boxing greatness into a World Championship.

I saw Dave Sands fight in Wellington against Dave Marr (an Australian) and Don Mullett, the New Zealand heavyweight champion. No one will convince me otherwise that since the Second World War, anyway, there has been a better pound-for-pound fighter than Dave Sands.

I also saw Australia’s first World Champion Jimmy Carruthers box. The fight was an unfortunate comeback affair, again in Wellington, against a tough Scot-New Zealander Jimmy Cassidy.

Carruthers was magnificent for a couple of rounds, a broad shouldered southpaw with a direct, straight-punching style. He then ran out of puff and was a defeated fighter by the end of the encounter.

Jimmy Carruthers fought the single most memorable round of any Australian fighter when he took the World Championship from Vic Toweel, the South African, in the most ferocious first round assault since Joe Louis demolished Max Schmeling in their second fight in one round.

Dave Sands, Jimmy Carruthers and Jeff Fenech, in that order, make up the best Australian boxers in the last 50 years.

Advertisement

Tony Mundine is some way behind this trio, but well in front in class of his son, Anthony Mundine.

close