Everything You Need To Know About Mundine Vs Green II

Ten years ago Anthony Mundine danced around the ring in front of 30 000 fans at the Sydney Football Stadium and picked Danny Green apart. His jabs were laser-guided, his feet were lightning and his right-cross was back in its holster before you'd even felt it.

Green, who had been forced to drop down a weight division to make the fight, looked worse than sluggish. In fact he looked ill, wearing—as it happens—a complexion that fluctuated between pale and green over the course of the fight. Ultimately, his superior straight-punching game was dulled to the point of impotence and Mundine danced and jabbed his way to an easy unanimous points decision.

The fight still holds the record for as the biggest holding match in TAB history, taking more money than the recent Mayweather-Pacquiao superbout.

Earlier this week Anthony Mundine, Danny Green and their entourages met at Veloce cafe at Sydney Airport to discuss a rematch. In a meeting that lasted five minutes, in which witnesses say Mundine did most of the talking, the pair agreed to terms. The fight will be worth an estimated $30 million with the fighters walking away with ten each. Where Green was forced to drop weight for their first encounter, Mundine will now have to come up a division to meet Green at the 83 kilo "catch" weight. This will put Mundine squarely in the sights of Green's formidable forward cannons, prompting Australian boxing great and former Green trainer, Jeff Fenech, to go as far as demanding authorities prevent the fight from going ahead due to the risk Green poses to Mundine's health

"If there's a boxing authority anywhere in Australia who lets it happen, we might as well ban the sport here forever," he told the Daily Telegraph following rumours of a rematch last year.

"Everyone saw what happened to Anthony last fight (against American Charles Hartley). He got knocked down however many times by a light middleweight nobody knows.

"And Danny Green, he doesn't punch like a light middleweight.

"People saying they want this fight to see Choc get knocked out, that's exactly what they'll get.

"If Danny doesn't finish him in the first round, he isn't trying.

"But why would anyone want Anthony to get hurt, seriously hurt? The sport here has already had a couple of tragic deaths this year, it doesn't need any more."

.— telegraph_sport (@telegraph_sport)November 19, 2015

The fighting careers of Anthony Mundine and Danny Green have undergone an inversion since Mundine won their last bout ten years ago. Green's career peaked in 2009 with his first round knockout of Roy Jones Jr, one of the greatest pound for pound boxers of all-time. Meanwhile, Mundine has suffered a series of humiliating losses. In 2008 he was knocked out by little known South Sydney hardman and winner of the boxing reality TV show, The Contender, Garth "Da Hood" Wood.

In 2012 he was stripped of his WBA Light Middleweight title "for failing to meet the obligations for the mandatory fight" against American Austin Trout.

In 2013 he lost a rematch with the fellow First Australian boxer, Daniel Geale, whose Aboriginal heritage Mundine had earlier questioned, sparking outrage in the Aboriginal community.

"I thought they wiped all the Aborigines from Tasmania out," he said.

""That's all I know . . . I don't know, I don't see him representing black people, or coloured people. I don't see him in the communities, I don't see him doing the things I do to people, and fighting for the people. But he's his own man.

"He's got a white woman, he's got white kids. I keep it real, all day every day.

He was beaten in 2014 by IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey in Newcastle on points then sprung an upset points win on European Champion Sergey Rabchenko. He was knocked out in his last fight against American Charles Hartley.

As for the rematch, the bad blood remains but it's hard to tell what's genuine shit talking and what's commercially-minded shit stirring. The verbal stoushes, waged mostly over social media, have been entertaining nonetheless. After Danny Green told Triple M radio:

"I'm hunting a rabbit. He's dashing in and out of his rabbit warren. I might need that gun over there to make it happen (referring to a video game rifle).

"People don't really care what I'm doing in the boxing world. They don't really care what he's doing in the boxing world. They want to see us fight each other.

"I've been down this path a million times and we're ready to go. He put a thing on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, saying, 'Don't believe what you read, I'm the one trying to make this fight happen.' That's completely and utterly incorrect and false. So I just put him back in his box and shut him down.

"He knows he has nowhere to move. If he fights again, he knows there'll be plenty of seats because his family and all his close friends will be there and that will be about it. That's where we're at. It's up to him to step up.

"He's banging on about weight. I've fought monsters. I've fought heavyweights as a light heavyweight. I can bang on about this all day. He's just got to man up."

Mundine replied with this:

There's plenty of interest in the fight purely on symbolic value. In the white corner is Danny Green, the all white, all-Australian, West-Australian, typically understated, humble and working class. While in the black, is Anthony Mundine, an outspoken, at times idiotic though obscenely talented Aboriginal Islamic convert.

While fighting on the same card in adjacent matches in the leadup to their last fight, Green had urged his fans to show their disapproval of Mundine at the stadium. They answered by pelting The Man with plastic bottles upon entering and exiting the ring. Mundine, for all his detractors, is lauded by certain sections of the Aboriginal community for his outspokenness which is seen as important in building self-belief and self esteem for his people. Green, meanwhile, is a former student of Jeff Fenech and started his career training at the Bankstown PCYC, in the heart of multicultural Australia.

Mundine initially suggested the fight should take place at Uluru and be billed as 'The Blue At Uluru' in honour of Ali and Foreman's Rumble In the Jungle. It's unlikely that will happen with either Sydney, Melbourne or Perth being listed as venues currently. Mundine has said the fight will be his last, while Green still needs to beat highly-rated Victorian and nine years Green's junior, Kane Watts (18-2) this Wednesday before he takes on Mundine. A loss would "be a spanner in the works," said Green, though unlikely to cancel the rematch.