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Aussie sports fans are used to the ridiculous boasts from Anthony Mundine, but his trash talking of Johnathan Thurston was extreme even for him.
Promoting his fight with Charles Hatley (which he lost), Mundine favourably compared himself with the North Queensland, Queensland and Australian superstar. He said Thurston was like him “but way slower…I think I had twin turbos. If he had twin turbos he’d be similar to me. I think if I was around another five or so years I would have got the (accolades) I deserve.”
While most retired sports starts are content enough not to bring up past glories, Mundine, who retired 15 years ago, is fixed on reminding everyone how good he thought he used to be.
Let’s look at the stats.
Games: Mundine 127 (St. George, Brisbane, St. George-Illawarra), Thurston 268 (North Queensland, Canterbury)
Points: Mundine 244, Thurston 1794
Premierships: Mundine – 1 (Brisbane 1997), Thurston – 2 (Canterbury 2004, North Queensland 2015).
Origin: Mundine (NSW) 3 games, 4 points, Thurston (Queensland) 33 games, 200 points.
Tests: Mundine 0 games, Thurston 32 games, 332 points.
While Mundine’s been shooting his mouth off, Thurston has been soaking up the premiership glory and enjoying the off-season.
To be fair to Mundine, he’s managed to switch from rugby league to a decent boxing career, with 47 wins and 7 losses. The jury’s still out on the quality of some of those wins though. While he famously beat Danny Green in 2006, talks of a rematch persist and Green is the crowd favourite.
While Mundine is proud of his Indigenous heritage, he not afraid to criticise fellow Indigenous athletes who have done plenty for their community like Thurston. He knocked runner Cathy Freeman, saying “She sold out, toeing the line…as far as being a leader, that’s not her anyway, a man can only lead”.
He also criticised fellow boxer and Tasmanian Daniel Geale, saying “I thought they wiped all the Aborigines from Tasmania out…He’s got a white woman, he’s got white kids. I keep it real, all day every day”.
You’d almost credit Mundine for having the courage to avoid the boring cliché-speak of most other sports starts, before realising what he said was stupid, racist and offensive.
So why can’t Mundine shut up? Does his ego fuel the need to create headlines? Does he like the attention? Or could it be a cynical ploy to generate fight publicity through controversy?
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