More Important than Life or Death by Peter FitzSimons

Author:Peter FitzSimons
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SPO000000, book
ISBN: 9781743435199
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2013-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

THE MAKING OF A MAN

Brad Walter

There is a flat patch of ground in a gully near the outdoor boxing ring Anthony Mundine set up at the remote Aboriginal settlement of Baryulgil to prepare for Wednesday night’s bout against Danny Green. The locals refer to it as the Bull Ring.

‘Anyone who got into a fight—the drunks and that—would have to sort out their differences first thing the next morning in the Bull Ring,’ Mundine’s father and trainer, Tony, recalls.

‘They’d fight with bare fists until one person dropped. There would be broken teeth and broken noses. As kids, we’d all gather round and watch. If someone didn’t want to fight, they’d be dragged out of bed.’

Perhaps it’s where the Mundines developed their boxing genes. Although Tony—like Anthony—doesn’t drink or smoke. Their upbringings, however, were vastly different, and unlike his father, Mundine’s background is no Rocky script.

Born in Newtown and raised in Earlwood, Mundine was always destined to be an elite sportsman and by 15 had toured the US with a combined NSW–Queensland basketball team and was on a rugby league scholarship with St George. Choosing the latter, he became a star with the Dragons and played for NSW, ensuring he always enjoyed the best conditions and facilities.

In contrast, Tony Mundine worked from the age of 13 in the asbestos mine near Baryulgil that is blamed for so many of his friends and relatives being buried in the village’s graveyard. Like so many boxers, he used the sport to build a better life for himself and his family and believes his tough start helped him get to within one knock-out punch of the world middleweight title.

It’s why Anthony Mundine decided to go back to basics for the Green fight with his primitive training camp in Baryulgil, a 12-hectare tract of land bequeathed to three Aboriginal families—the Mundines, Daleys and Gordons—by the cattle-ranch owner they worked for to help them escape the welfare laws of the 1920s that led to the stolen generation.

‘Anthony is a city boy, but the country life is a good life,’ Tony Mundine says. ‘When Anthony first started training, he was doing all new stuff like running machines and weights and all of that shit—the same as what Danny Green is doing now. Weights will do no good for you.

‘To be a boxer, you have got to have muscles like a baby, you’ve got to be quick and able to fire like a bullet. If you are pumping weights, naturally your muscles are going to get hard and you’re going to stiffen and get tight. You might think you look good but from maybe the sixth round or seventh round onwards you’re going to feel the [negative] effect.

‘The old school way is still the best: get a lot of exercise the natural way like sit-ups and doing a lot of mileage. In the old days, it was . . . harder and . . . tougher. You’ve got to remember the guys who have beaten my son—like [Mikkel] Kessler and

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