I just remember, everyone in Melbourne fell in love with his power and he was trained by Jack Rennie, who had taken Lionel Rose to Japan to beat Fighting Harada for the world title, decades before. My Dad was really only a casual fight fan but he had a bit of a prophetic nack about him. I was a young bloke at the time and the local media had pinned Thunder as Australia's answer to Mike Tyson. I remember my Dad at the time, telling me. " You watch, they'll bring some guy out from the states and he'll give Thunder a hiding". Sure enough it happened! Thunder then went on to lose to domestic level but this credit, years later in the states, he had some good wins on the USA Tuesday night fights.
For some reason he swinged a lot in that fight. He looked much better against Dancuta, for example, who was far better fighter than Dixon