- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Anthony Mundine versus Danny Green – a rivalry that has played out more in the headlines of newspapers than boxing rings over the past decade-plus – will finally be settled with fists, not words, on Friday night.
» Fight report: Green defeats Mundine
» Every fight result from the night
» WATCH: Mundine vs Green 2 highlights
» WATCH: Cooper vs McInnes highlights
Mundine has always dared to be great.
In a sport like boxing, padding a record is child’s play. It’s easy to boost one’s confidence with crushing wins over anonymous punchers but that was never really Mundine’s MO.
Since joining the boxing fraternity in 2000 after a distinguished rugby league career, Mundine has consistently campaigned for the biggest fights, sharing the ring with 11 world champions.
Right now, die-hard boxing nuts are salivating over Vasyl Lomachenko, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who is proving to be one of the most offensively potent machines the sport has ever seen.
One of the many reasons fans are doodling love letters to Lomachenko is that he has jumped in with both feet. At 7-1, most fighters are not even competing in 10 rounders, yet this 28-year-old is a two-weight world champion.
Not too dissimilarly, Mundine was fighting for championship gold seven months after he first stepped between the ropes for his debut. By his 11th bout, ‘The Man’ packed his bags, flew to Germany and took on three-time Olympian and unbeaten pro champion Sven Ottke in his own backyard.
16 years later, Mundine is no less ambitious.
In what is expected to be his final fight, the 41-year-old two-sport athlete is packing on 10 kilos for a grudge match against ‘The Green Machine’.
The two high-profile Aussie strikers first met in 2006 – a bout that Mundine easily won – keeping Green behind his shotgun jab for 12 rounds, racking up 10 of those on my personal scorecard.
Heading into the rematch, Green is a substantial betting favourite. He’s bigger, has knockout power and is facing a fighter with a questionable chin.
In recent bouts, Mundine’s suspect jaw has been put on display, with the veteran fighter kissing the mat five times against Josh Clottey. He then went down six times against Charles Hatley and didn’t get up after the last one.
History suggests that stepping up in weight in the dying stages of your career to face a knockout artist like Green is a mistake, and it very well could be.
That being said, at 43, Green is so far past his prime that he can no longer see it in the rearview mirror.
I was in the building for Green’s last bout – a points win over Melbourne’s Kane Watts at Hisense Arena – and it’s safe to say he didn’t set the world on fire.
Granted, the former light heavyweight and cruiserweight titlist comfortably won the decision, but against an untested fighter, Green exited the ring bloodied and exhausted.
Green did flash his power, dropping Watts twice en route to a decision, but the ring rust was visible in his fourth fight in as many years.
Mundine, unlike Green, has been taking on real challenges over the past few years – former champions and rising contenders like Shane Mosely, Sergey Rabchenko, Joshua Clottey and Charles Hatley.
Green, on the other hand, hasn’t fought a top fighter since Antonio Tarver in 2011 and last finished an opponent in 2012.
The Perth-based puncher will almost certainly put Mundine in danger at some stage over the scheduled 36-minute bout on pay-per-view this Friday night, but Mundine has proven time and time again to be tough as nails.
Not to mention, Mundine was a better boxer a decade ago and he’s still a better ring technician today.
With his jab, frantic footwork and superior hand speed, I think ‘The Man’ has all the tools to slay the giant, as he dares to be great one last time.