Memorable fights on Australian Soil

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One of the biggest names ever to visit here was light heavyweight champion Jose Torres, back in 1968.

Torres had held both the WBA and WBA titles for a few years and fought Bobby Dunlop in Sydney not long after losing a title fight to Dick Tiger.

This was a great opportunity for Dunlop. But unfortunately he fell well short of the mark, being stopped in the 6th round.

 

Looking at Jack Carroll's record he had 102 fights. 100 of them were in Australia and the remaining 2 in New Zealand. Never quite got his way to the US or UK.

 

His trip to NZ was enough to deter him from further travel. Heres his exact words from a newspaper interview in the Courier-Mail from 1936.

“My tour of New Zealand in 1928 was a dream of delight, but the actual voyage was a nightmare. New Zealand was a grand experience, but the boat trips to and from were horrible. Only once in my life have I wanted to die and that was while crossing the Tasman. I'd rather be belted for 15 rounds than have any hour of those boat trips over again. . . Now do you wonder why I didn't want to go to America?”

 

There you have it. It wouldn't have been any pleasure cruise back in those days.

 

Certainly wouldnt have. I think the fact that Carroll lacked ambition was another big roadblock towards any prospective travel to the US or England. He was a homely shy man from all accounts.

 

When Roy Jones Jnr came here it was like a royal visit. A genuine ATG of boxing coming to a boxing outpost like Australia was huge news and it was all over the TV, newspapers and internet. It came as a huge shock when Danny Green stopped Roy in the first round. I was in a packed bar and the crowd went absolutely nuts when Green hurt Roy after only a matter of seconds into the fight and then the referee stopped it. Then there was just a stunned silence while the punters took in what they had just witnessed.

 

I wasn't too shocked or stunned to see this forty year old legend, RJJ, who had done it so one sidedly and savagely for twenty solid years up until 2009, decide to cave in.
He was Forty years old, and with twenty years of solid fighting, in my view, was past his useby date.

 

I didn't expect we would get to see the best version of Roy. But like most other people I spoke to in the lead up to the fight I thought he would be far too classy for the 36 year old Danny Green.

 

I was surprised Green won and won so easily. He showed his susceptibility to an opponent with fast hands who could move 3 years earlier against Mundine and I thought the great Roy Jones would bring at least as much as Mundine had. Then again, Green jumped Jones and may have caught him cold.

 

At one stage we held 5 Commonwealth titles simultaneously. There is a picture with the 5 champions together wearing their belts. Mundine, Ramon, Dunne, Ferreri and Nissen and they all initially won their belts on Australian soil.

 

In early 1973 Hec Thompson won a Commonwealth title as well beating Ghana's Joe Tetteh in Queensland. I'm almost certain at that point we had 6 Commonwealth titlists simultaneously and all of them won in Australia.

Tony Mundine - middleweight
Charkey Ramon - junior middleweight
Hector Thompson - light welterweight
Bobby Dunne - featherweight
Paul Ferreri - bantamweight
Henry Nissen - flyweight

 

Australian's rarely seem to get the chance to fight for Commonwealth titles any more and when they do they seem to have to travel for the fights.