Boxing news 2023 Nikita Tszyu-Jack Brubaker: Aussie boxer’s wild bikie brawl at a bar in Bali
Rising boxing star Jack Brubaker has opened up on the wild bikie brawl in a Bali nightclub that left him with a cracked tooth, and three missing fillings.
Boxing/MMA
Don't miss out on the headlines from Boxing/MMA. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The hardest punch Jack Brubaker has ever taken was delivered by an angry, heavily tattooed bikie in a bar somewhere in Bali.
The suckerpunch was so forceful it knocked out three fillings and cracked a tooth, but it didn’t send Brubaker to the barroom floor.
The ‘Cronulla Cowboy’ takes an almost perverse pride in that fact, and four years on, it still gives him confidence that his chin can withstand whatever Nikita Tszyu throws at him in their blockbuster bout at the Hordern Pavilion on Wednesday night.
As it usually does, Brubaker’s bikie drama began after a few drinks in one of Bali’s notorious watering holes, where he was partying a few weeks after his fight with Tim Tszyu in December 2019.
Brubaker accidentally knocked over someone’s shisha pipe and burned his hand on its hot coals when he tried picking it up.
Needing to soothe the pain, he spied a big bucket of ice next to an even bigger group of dangerous looking bikies.
“I just grabbed a handful of ice for my hand and they thought I was grabbing one of their drinks,” Brubaker tells this masthead.
Words were exchanged before Brubaker started walking off.
That’s when he was whacked from the side.
“This guy weighed 120kg, easily, and he just king hit me on the right side of my jaw, and it knocked three fillings out,” Brubaker said. “But I just wore it, spun back around and looked at him and said, ‘You hit like a bitch’ in front of all of his mates.”
The pair was separated and Brubaker was kicked out of the bar, but his ordeal was just starting.
“They put me outside and the bouncer just goes, ‘You need to leave, they want to kill you’,” Brubaker said.
“They were trying to push me down the street, because they don’t care if you get killed down the street, as long as it’s not in front of their place.
“I knew these guys were coming out to get me, so I stayed right there and eventually all 10 of these big, tatted bikies walked out, it felt like that movie 300.
“This guy just goes, ‘You and me, one on one’, and we just punched on.
“It was like a hockey fight, or a Gorden Tallis fight.
“As soon as I threw one punch, all 10 of his mates jumped in, hitting me in the back and side of the head, and luckily my mates all came outside as well.
“My mate, who goes to the gym every day and weighs about 105kg, grabbed this dude in a choke hold from behind him, and this guy just grabbed him over the shoulders and rag-dolled him to the ground.
“After a few minutes of this tornado, we kind of punched ourselves out and it stopped. Me and the bloke looked at each other and I think I’d got a bit of respect from him, and I said, ‘are we done?’ and he goes, ‘yeah, mate, we’re done’, and he walked off.
“It was a wild hoorah.”
It’s certainly not one of his prouder moments, but Brubaker says if he can wear a sucker punch from a bikie who outweighed him by about 50 kilos, there’s not much another super-welterweight with 10 ounce gloves on his hands can do.
“That’s when I knew, you can hit me over the head with a baseball bat and it’ll just bounce off,” Brubaker says. “I know Nikita can punch, and I don’t enjoy getting hit, but I can fight fire with fire.
“That’s why this is such a fan friendly fight. I know I’m gonna get hit, but so will he.”
As for the aftermath of his wild Bali punch on, despite nursing a sore mouth and ears from the all-in melee, Brubaker didn’t let it ruin his night.
“We went back, had a shower, changed shirts and carried on,” he jokes. “We just went out to the next pub and had a good time the same night.”
More Coverage
Originally published as Boxing news 2023 Nikita Tszyu-Jack Brubaker: Aussie boxer’s wild bikie brawl at a bar in Bali
Freak hurricane threatens Tim Tszyu world title fight
Tim Tszyu’s team will hold urgent talks with American boxing authorities over his world title fight – which has been plunged into uncertainty over a ‘potentially catastrophic’ hurricane.
‘Finally’: 11-year Tszyu first looms at world title showdown after selfless Nikita act
Kostya Tszyu is readying to reunite with his sons for the first time in 11 years - with plans underway to have the Australian boxing legend ringside for Tim’s world title blockbuster.