HORN’S DREAM
FIGHT OF THE CENTURY
JEFF Horn’s shot at world sporting stardom began with an audacious dream over coffee. It came to life at a birthday party in New Zealand, grew legs over an Italian feast at Toowong and was finally up and running after a bunfight in Dubai.
Horn faces World Boxing Organisation welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao at Suncorp Stadium next Sunday in the biggest fight ever in Australia.
The star power of Pacquiao, an 11-times world champion, and the “Cinderella Man’’ rise of Horn from bullied schoolboy to world title contender will see a crowd expected to top 50,000.
What will be one of Australia’s great sporting events began with a dream of Horn’s trainer Glenn Rushton. The 59-year-old Brisbane multi-millionaire left Townsville at 14 with $20 in his pocket to be a fruit picker and he has been making wishes come true ever since.
Back in 2014, Rushton sat down over coffee with Dean Lonergan, the former New Zealand rugby league forward, whose company Duco Events promotes boxing.
Rushton told Lonergan he had a dream that Horn would one day fill Suncorp Stadium for a world title fight.
At the time Horn was fighting before crowds of a few hundred people, but the pair started working towards making what seemed an absurd fantasy become reality.
Horn fought for Duco for the next two years and last September Lonergan called Las Vegas-based Bob Arum, the most successful boxing promoter of all time, to say Brisbane’s Fighting Schoolteacher would make “a perfect sell’’ for a fight with Pacquiao.
Arum, who started promoting Muhammad Ali more than 50 years ago and has been Pacquiao’s promoter for more than a decade, said “no way’’ and that Horn was an unknown on the world stage.
But Arum flew to Auckland to watch a December 10 world heavyweight title fight that featured Horn against South African veteran Ali Funeka on the undercard. While Arum was in town Duco hosted his 85th birthday party at an Auckland harbour restaurant.
It was a great night and Arum started warming to the idea of a unique sporting event –a schoolteacher fighting a senator for a world boxing championship.
“Can you imagine the marketing potential?’’ Arum said. “Here you have a cleancut kid with no tattoos, married to his high-school sweetheart.
“He has a university degree. He’s a schoolteacher – every kid in the world will be tuning in to see how the teacher fights. His appeal on the world stage could be huge.’’
Horn won his fight against Funeka and now has the chance to beat Pacquiao.