Tonight at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre, Anthony Mundine will attempt to become the first man to win titles in three weight divisions in descending order challenging Mexican Rigoberto Alvarez for the vacant WBA interim Junior Middleweight title.
Sounds impressive, right? That’s what they want you to believe.
The fight itself is actually a good, competitive match-up; a rarity in a Mundine fight.
Alvarez, brother of Saul Alvarez, who is currently one of the hottest up and comers in boxing, is a fringe world contender and is the most credible opponent Mundine has faced since his controversial decision win over current Middleweight world titlist Daniel Geale.
The title itself though will be the third paper belt that Mundine will have fought for. Mundine has never been a world champion. He has never proved himself to be in the top five, let alone the best in any of the divisions he’s fought in and this fight is no different.
In order to get this title shot, Mundine blatantly avoided one of the two current WBA champions at this weight Austin Trout and took the fight with Alvarez, who lost to Trout in February in a fight to determine the third titlist in the same division by the same organisation.
Make sense?
Of course it doesn’t and this is how Mundine’s promotional team make it out that he has achieved anything, because boxing isn’t a well reported sport in Australia and all of the sanctioning bodies are more interested in making money rather than actually running the sport properly.
This isn’t the first time Mundine has gone this route for one of his “world titles.” His first WBA super middleweight title that he won was the same with Sven Ottke, who knocked Mundine out cold in the 10th round of their fight two years before, holding the real title.
His second “reign” was no different, this time Mikkel Kessler had the real title having beaten Mundine 18 months before in a title defence and the vacant title only opening up when Kessler unified the titles. Mundine even gave up the belt during his second reign to avoid fighting Kessler in a rematch.
The middleweight title Mundine then won was also illegitimate. Mundine won the IBO title when he defeated Geale in 2009. The IBO isn’t one of the four recognised world titles and Geale was not considered to be a world champion at that point, it was only when Mundine won the fight that anyone claimed it as a real world championship. In fact Geale won the title over another unranked Australian fighter Daniel Dawson and only defended it once over an unranked English boxer.
The IBO recently has favoured Australian based fighters, with the likes of Danny Green, Leonard Zappavinga, Billy Dib, Vic Darchinyan, Lovemore N’Dou, Jackson Asiku and Sakio Bika having all won IBO titles in the last few years despite not defeating world ranked opponents in the process. Mundine’s title was no different.
The other thing about the hype around this fight is the descending order nonsense. Why is it that no other boxer has gone down in weight to win titles? Because usually when you have no one else to fight in your division, you go UP in weight and challenge bigger fighters, not move down and fight someone smaller then you.
It’s stupid.
On both occasions it seems that Mundine has thought that he can’t handle the potential opponents in his current division (Kessler at super middleweight and Geale at middleweight) and has gone down to fight someone smaller.
Mundine versus Alvarez is a good fight. Both guys are on the same level but let’s call a spade a spade.
It’s not a legitimate world title, it’s a fight between two guys who might be in the top 20 fighting for a chance to face one of the better names and there is no history on the line for Mundine.
In fact, I’d rate his father’s achievement of winning three national titles in different weight divisions higher than this farce.
In those days, you had to fight credible opponents to get those titles. You couldn’t get away with handpicking opponents and making up titles to sell yourself as something you’re not.
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