I'm a boxing fan, get me out of here!

One thing the Australian public seem to love above all else in sport is authenticity – a genuine competition, built on legitimate emotion. It’s apparent across the entire sporting spectrum.

At present we are witnessing a former bonfire that is now smouldering embers. Danny Green and Anthony Mundine are drumming loudly as ever, in the almost comical setting of a reality TV show.

It is the chief example of a once-great rivalry gone amiss, and the public turning their backs.

Being a long-time connoisseur of the sweet science, I must admit there’s some yin and yang here. Wind your clocks back to 2006, and try to remember the state of interest in Australian boxing.

Kostya Tszyu, Australia’s last blue-chip fighter, had recently retired, after a changing-of-the-guard bout in Manchester against Ricky Hatton.

With few foreign luminaries to carry the mantle, Australia turned to its domestic warriors to help reignite the scene with a hellish flurry. Mundine and Green achieved just that.

I was only a young buck, but remember the spectacle vividly. It was an iconic event and easily one of the loudest and brightest moments in Australian boxing history. You picked a side: Man or Machine. Mundine emerged victorious by unanimous decision.

Despite venturing down markedly different paths since, the two remained the most notable figures in Australian combat sport, up until the noisy Filipino storm and a gifted American arose.

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Father Time caught up with both men, and a string of losses to Argentinian cab drivers and Polish road sweepers left the nation nonplussed, particularly with a new, shiny toy named the UFC gaining traction.

As performances grew meek and interest waned, Mundine’s antagonistic gob rendered him more incredulous by the hour. He is an extremely talented man, but a career skint in big names turned the public against him.

Green had his moments, and attracted some former supernovas to our shores, but ultimately he succumbed to fans’ investment in foreign fighting products.

Mundine and Green danced again for a second time in Adelaide, in a fight no one asked for, but we all got.

Both well into their middle ages, it was a dour affair greeted with a yawn and disgruntled groans. It seemed a final goodbye to the glory days for them, one last smash-and-grab mission.

While Green was the victor, the Adelaide entry into the Green-Mundine story really only served to remind us that Father Time is undefeated.

Danny Green (AAP Image/Tony McDonough)

Boxing has since surged back into popularity on a global scale, with the top dogs seeking each other out, rather than scurrying for safe corners.

Heavyweight thoroughbred Anthony Joshua holds the cards for the big units. An athletic freak, Joshua’s limitless marketability gave boxing the figurehead it so badly needed.

Middleweight gladiators Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez added a new chapter to the middleweight division’s storied history. Their absorbing contest was a throwback to the all-or-nothing days.

Featherweight masterpiece Vasyl Lomachenko holds a new slice of social currency. His almost futuristic style of swimming without getting wet is totally unseen in boxing circles, so much so that his last four opponents (including pound for pound king Guillermo Rigondeaux) have quit mid-way, unable to unlock the complex Loma puzzle.

Local MMA products like Robert Whittaker and Mark Hunt also have their slice of the pie with outstanding performances, leaving the champions of yesteryear lagging by a distance. They had their moment in the sun, and its gravity at the time should not be underestimated nor posthumously degraded.

However, if you do an assessment of the current boxing landscape, you’ll quickly realise that Man and Machine are all but redundant.

Mundine and Green are now squaring off under the carefully scripted eyes of the directors of ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’, and it defies belief that any person of sane mind – especially a former professional athlete – would willingly participate in such low-brow debauchery.

While Brendan Fevola’s sensational claims that the two are mates might be off the mark, there’s no doubt the logical answer points to two men knowingly milking the cash cow a little longer.

However, with this faux confrontation on reality television 12 years on from the original fight night, it has simply left people thinking, “I’m an Australian boxing fan, get me out of here!”