Former world middleweight champion Daniel Geale has ruled out ever leaving Australia to raise his international profile.
Geale (30-3-1) fights Queensland’s Jarrod Fletcher (18-2) for the IBF Pan-Pacific and WBO Asia-Pacific interim titles at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Wednesday in a contest both men have admitted could be a make or break their careers.
The winner will have a great opportunity to fight for a world title – something both tried and failed to do in New York earlier this year.
Two-time world champion Geale was stopped in the third round by brilliant Kazakh fighter Gennady Golovkin for the IBO belt at Madison Square Garden in July, while Fletcher lost to Danny Jacobs for the vacant WBA crown at the iconic New York venue a month later.
The Sydney-based Tasmanian is hopeful a win against Fletcher will lead to a possible rematch with Golovkin – who’s regarded as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter.
Should that fail to materialise, a contest with WBC champion Miguel Cotto or unbeaten Chicago-based Cuban Peter Quillin could also be in his sights.
However, with boxing having such a low profile in Australia, Geale knows it’s not as simple for fighters in this country to line up big-money fights.
Wednesday’s contest is a prime example of the troubles promoters have to fill venues, with NRL players Paul Gallen and Anthony Watts fighting on the undercard of a bout between two top-class home-grown fighters to try and drum up interest.
But Geale insists he’s not prepared to uproot his young family for the sake of his career.
“A lot of people have asked me, but I love Australia too much,” Geale told AAP.
“I guess the reason we don’t get as much attention and why things don’t fall for us so easily is that we are based in Australia.
“If I was to say `bugger it, I’ll base myself in LA,’ someone over there would probably get behind me a little bit more and there would be more opportunities.
“But I have a young family, I love living in Sydney and although it would be better for my career, I don’t want to move.”
Brisbane-based Fletcher, who had an outstanding amateur career that included Commonwealth gold in Melbourne in 2006 and qualification for the Beijing Olympics, also knows how tough it is for Australian fighters to earn recognition.
The Queenslander beat Britain’s Olympic champion James De Gale and Canada’s WBC light-heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson to win gold in front of his home fans but hasn’t been able to transfer that success into the pro ranks.
“I wanted to fight at an Olympic Games but in hindsight maybe I should have turned pro after Melbourne,” Fletcher told AAP.
“But I still have a bit left in me and want to get back out there on the world stage.”
Although he was bitterly disappointed to lose on a fifth-round stoppage to Jacobs, Fletcher, whose only other defeat was to Britain’s highly rated Billy-Joe Saunders in London two years ago, said he’d learned from the loss.
“I felt at home there in New York,” he said.
“I just want to get back. My defence wasn’t as tight as it should have been … but it was a good learning fight for me.
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