Mundine ready to get uncomfortable
IT could be a metaphor for his career, if not Anthony Mundine’s entire life.
Mundine is planning to spend up to four weeks in southeast Queensland ahead of his fight against Jeff Horn to acclimatise to the steamy conditions expected for their November 30 superfight.
“To make the uncomfortable comfortable,” Mundine said.
It’s a line that could describe the 43-year-old’s approach to life, although more than a few of his detractors would say the former rugby league player and boxing champ thrives on making the comfortable, uncomfortable.
Not that it would bother Mundine. His fight against Horn will be the final chapter for an athlete more polarising than any in Australian sport.
Mundine says he will leave an “unprecedented” legacy.
He could be right but his willingness to say so sits uncomfortably with the idea of a humble champion.
“It’s unprecedented. What I’ve done has never been done,” he said.
“All that I’ve accomplished in rugby league and then to come to boxing and become a three-time world champ descending weight divisions, has never been done in the history of sport – let alone in this country, in any country.”
The opinions of others matter little to Mundine, who promises to stop Horn inside the distance in Brisbane.
“I want to go out with a blaze of glory. I want to prove that I was one of the best of my generation and I’m one of the best of this generation as well. I just can’t see him beating me. There’s levels to this and he ain’t on my level, he ain’t on my skill set level.”
Mundine knows that will rub people the wrong way.
But he is not about to change his spots now.
“If Jeff Horn had my resume, there’d be monuments and statues all over the country to him,” he said.
“But because I’m Anthony Mundine and I’m outspoken and I’m Aboriginal and I’m Muslim and I say it how it is … that has overshadowed my accomplishments. That I think is wrong. God willing, in time, people will say, well, this guy was incredible.”
Mundine knows not everyone will come to that realisation.
“It would have been better if I’d have just closed my mouth and toed the line so to speak,” he said.
“But because I said things against the system and am trying to make change for the better, especially for my people and our place in this society and our plight as people – like the flag, like the anthem and all these types of things – they act like I’m going crazy.” But that’s not his aim.
“I try to uplift people,” Mundine says.
“I try to empower people, give them that confidence, give them that belief because with that belief, you grow, you blossom and you do things that you never thought you could do.”
It’s not Mundine’s plan for Horn next month though.
“The Terrence Crawford nightmare is going to continue on November 30. I’m going to stop him. It’s going to continue. I don’t know where he goes from here, he’s done.
“They’ll have to rebuild him – and hopefully they do. I wish him all the best but he’s just not on my level. Period.”