Annette Sharp: Boxer ‘Aussie Joe’ Bugner alive and reliving glory days
After concerned friends raised the alarm that veteran boxer “Aussie Joe” Bugner, 72, “disappeared off the map”, Annette Sharp has discovered he is safe and well.
Entertainment
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One-time boxing star Joe Bugner is living “his best life” in a Queensland aged care home where kindly fellow residents treat him as though he’s currently the heavyweight champion of the world and the calendar is surely playing tricks.
Isn’t it still the 1970s?
Following widespread interest in last week’s column in which a friend of Bugner’s of 53-years reached out to this writer for help find the former British and European heavyweight champ – of whom the man had lost track during the pandemic – the 72-year-old retired boxer has been found.
Bugner, 72, is “happy and comfortable” and living as a permanent resident at an assisted living home near Brisbane said the woman who now serves as his primary carer, Brent Carter.
Carter is the daughter of Bugner’s second wife Marlene, an Australian tabloid newspaper journalist who at one time worked for The Sun newspaper and married Bugner in California in 1978 following the headline-making breakdown of the father-of-three’s first marriage to an Englishwoman in 1976.
Marlene had two children from a previous marriage.
Motivated by this column’s plea on behalf of retired Sydney cafe owner and fellow British expat Graeme Goldberg – echoed by others who wrote to this writer during the week – Brent last week made contact with this column to assure her stepfather’s old friends Bugner has been well cared for since the death of her mother, almost two years ago, to cancer.
A decade older than Bugner, Marlene had served as the Hungarian migrant’s manager and protector – his “guard dog” as Bugner once described her – for 45 years until her death.
With her passing, which happened “quite quickly” according to her daughter, Bugner’s friends lost track of their old mate.
“My husband and I are the only family Joe’s got in Australia so we initially looked at moving him in with us after Mum’s death but decided in the end he needed more care than we could provide for his medical issues,” Brent said.
“We’ve been a tight little unit for many years now.
“Life with Mum was crazy and fun and colourful – Mum treated him beautifully and gave him every bit of support and love right to the very end.
“We’re doing our best now to carry on as she had, which he deserves because he’s such a big gregarious character.”
Still commanding in the flesh, Bugner, who stood 193cm and weighed 103kg during his prime when he famously fought Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the ring, is now battling diabetes and a raft of medical issues Brent said commonly afflicted retired pro boxers “who have boxed their entire lives”.
Memory loss is one of those issues, not surprising given Bugner had – and won – his last pro fight in 1999 at age 49, the year after he defeated American James “Bonecrusher” Smith and became the oldest boxer ever to hold a minor championship belt.
“He talks about meeting the Queen and tells stories from decades ago … He lives in that time mostly,” she said.
“He’s happy and calm and the people around him adore him,” said Carter, requesting this writer to not reveal Bugner’s current location in the interests of leaving the old boxer in peace.
In a further happy development, Bugner’s stepdaughter was able to bring us up to speed on the current status of Bugner’s relationship with his own three children, from whom he was once famously estranged following a messy and painful divorce.
With Marlene’s encouragement Bugner managed to mend relations with his adult children Joe, Amy and James and all three now regularly speak to their father via phone from their UK home.
FOOTNOTE: Kind thanks to those who took the time to make contact following last week’s story.
I received correspondence from Bugner’s friends both interstate and abroad, many of whom had lost contact with Bugner and are keen to reconnect.
Happily, as it turns out, he was never “lost” at all.
Among communications was a delightful email from one bus driver on the Central Coast who was convinced he’d found our man and had been talking to him for “many years” in the charming village of Bateau Bay. Perhaps not, but thank you sir for your swift response and warm community engagement.
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