Family place trust in mentor to keep son safe
A SHUDDER went through Jeff Horn’s father and brother as they watched the sickening television footage recently of a boxer losing his life after a brutal fight in Sydney.
While the Jeff Horn-Manny Pacquiao boxing blockbuster at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday promises to be a brutal slugfest, the Horn family and his trainer Glenn Rushton are well aware that boxing is a gruelling sport in which people have lost their lives.
Even Pacquiao, who ran beside the Brisbane River yesterday while thinking of launching missiles at Brisbane’s Fighting Schoolteacher, still gets tears in his eyes as he recalls the tragic night his best friend died after a boxing match in Manila in 1995.
Horn’s father Jeff Sr, 59, says he has “full confidence’’ that Rushton will take total care of his son in the biggest moment of his life.
“I watched the recent television segment about the death of Davey Browne in a boxing match in Sydney and it literally made me sick,’’ Horn Sr said. “I made my other son Ben (27) watch it with me because he will be in Jeff’s corner on Sunday and I wanted him to realise that no matter what, they all have to take care that Jeff does not get badly hurt.
“I don’t want their judgment affected by the excitement of the fight in the heat of battle.
“But I’ve got total confidence in Jeff’s trainer Glenn Rushton, who has guided Jeff every step of the way in his boxing career.
Rushton, 59, said that a trainer’s first responsibility was to protect his fighter.
“Sometimes in a hard fight a boxer is not thinking clearly so the trainer has to assess things very carefully and rationally,’’ Rushton said.