Like a carnival spruiker, Anthony Mundine is ensuring his upcoming middleweight title fight with Daniel Geale is receiving more attention than it would have had he kept his mouth shut.
‘Anthony Mundine’ and ‘mouth shut’ are not two terms that even peripheral sports fans would associate with each other, but the fact is Mundine has done his darndest to make sure this boxing match generates more interest than almost any in the sport’s recent history in Australia.
Had he been as quiet and as measured as his opponent, the January 30th fight would have played out no differently (and this is being written before the fight happens) but you can rest assured less people would have been interested in it.
This is the inevitable showmanship aspect of boxing, itself lifted straight off the storyboards of professional wrestling, which has to provide a convincing story to its contests given they are not ‘contests’ at all.
Muhummad Ali often cited 1950s professional wrestler ‘Gorgeous’ George Wagner as his inspiration for hyping a big fight.
George Wagner was a solid mid-card wrestler in the 1940s before coming up with an outrageous alter-ego who infuriated crowds and gained nationwide attention in the then-early days of television in the United States.
Ali met the 46 year old Wagner in Las Vegas when he was just 19. Ali has been quoted as saying George gave him a piece of advice he carried with him in his ring career:
“A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth. So keep on bragging, keep on sassing and always be outrageous.”
In talent and stature, Anthony Mundine is no Muhummad Ali but he is clever enough and brave enough to realise there is money to be made in being the bad guy, or the ‘heel’, as it is known in wrestling.
What he doesn’t have is a scripted outcome to work with.
So while his bravado and insults outrage many, he puts himself under massive pressure to perform in front of crowds who usually pay to see someone shut his mouth. He may well have fought ‘tomato cans’ in his most recent fights, but Daniel Geale is the IBF Middleweight champion and is probably the sternest test Mundine has faced in his career.
Mundine has even found time to engage in a feud with journalist Paul Kent in the lead-up to the bout, lest any sporting pages reader still didn’t know the fight was on. Kent obliged by writing up details of their most recent exchange at a pre-fight press conference.
Mundine the publicity machine had struck again.
Kent takes a dim view of Mundine’s place in Australian boxing and bemoans the state of the sport as a whole in this country. But while bouts like Sonny Bill Williams versus Frans Botha are shams of the highest order, Geale-Mundine II is one of the most anticipated fights in recent boxing history.
It wouldn’t have worked if Geale had been as flamboyant and polarising as Mundine. His no-nonsense demeanour and attitude is the perfect foil for Mundine and he knows his role just as well as Mundine does.
It is the ‘good versus bad’ storyline of combat sports writ large and has given even casual fans an investment in the outcome of the fight.
Mundine has taken the Gorgeous George mantra – “keep on bragging and keep on sassing” – all the way to the ring for his showdown with Geale. It has won him few friends but it takes a brave man to assume the weight of the villain in a real sports contest, especially when a pugilist as talented as Daniel Geale stands in the opposite corner.
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