Boxing, league legend Anthony Mundine apologies for controversial comments in emotional farewell
‘I can’t believe how wild I was.’ Fast forward two decades and Anthony Mundine insists he’s now a changed man as he prepares to tackle life after a wonderful sporting career.
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When the rain that has lashed Sydney finally relented, the sun came out to shine a spotlight on Anthony Mundine one last time.
The most controversial athlete in recent Australian sporting history stepped into the limelight for the final time on Tuesday with a retirement press conference at Circular Quay.
There were no more fights to promote, no more outrageous sound bites, no more feuds, no more opponents to trade barbs with — just a 45-year-old man preparing for the next chapter of his life.
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In perhaps his final day on centre stage, Mundine apologised for some of his more controversial comments over the years.
“If I offended anyone in my career, I’m sincerely sorry. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. I’m a different type of cat, as you get older you get more mellow,” Mundine said.
“I’m not the cocky, brash character I was when I was younger. I’ve matured over the years.
“I just always backed myself, believed in my ability. I had unbelievable rivals like Brad Fittler and Laurie Daley in footy, they were the benchmark, where I wanted to be. Every time we played it was like a fight.
“I’m not the fella who said Laurie (Daley) was on old legs — he was only 26, he was in his prime!”
Daley was on hand to say goodbye and this time he laughed along with Mundine. So did Matty Johns, another of Mundine’s old targets, and former AFL star Michael O’Loughlin.
Justin Langer, Paul Gallen and surfing legend Kelly Slater all dialled in with video messages of support and Gordon Tallis went the extra mile, rising at 5am to fly down from Brisbane to be there for the mate he met while playing for St George almost 30 years ago.
TALE OF TWO MEN
A lot of the time you hear Mundine’s close friends say there are two sides to him — the brash, cocky side the public knows and the one we don’t always see, when he would give you the shirt off his back and his last dollar.
It might seem like a cop-out given Mundine’s reputation, but hearing his friends and family speak, it’s a difficult story to deny.
“They know how real I am, they know I’m a genuine sort of cat. No bulls**t,” Mundine said.
“I can’t believe how wild I was, I was a wild cat. But that came from a lot of belief in my ability, in what I could do on the field.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t believe it.”
Tallis knows the other side of Mundine you’re always hearing about, like when he flew up to Brisbane to visit Tallis’s sister on her deathbed, or made sure Tallis’s grandmother was sitting ringside when he was fighting in Townsville.
“The guy I met back then is the one I fell in love with,” Tallis said. “The side the public knows, I don’t know them. That’s just to sell fights and he’s done a really good job of that.
“He was probably the first to do it in Australia. You see Conor McGregor do it and everyone gets on board.
“The Mayweathers and all the rest do it and it’s more acceptable now.
“But when he was doing it back then it wasn’t. We’re not America and it wasn’t as acceptable to use the media that way.
“I knew the real Choc. Everyone yelling at the pub didn’t know him.”
A DIVISIVE LEGACY
Mundine’s brash personality seems to be the antithesis of what Wayne Bennett values in the teams he coaches, but the supercoach was there, too.
In a testament to the impact they had on each other, Bennett had nothing but praise for Mundine, even though he coached him for just a single season almost a quarter of a century ago.
“He is a very respectful guy and he cares enormously about people, those are the things that endeared him to me,” Bennett said.
“You have belief in yourself, be prepared to follow your dream. That’s all he did, he believed in himself and followed it.
“He had the courage not to listen to all the critics. That comes from belief, having a dream and having the courage to follow it.”
For all the praise he gets from those close to him, Mundine’s public legacy is more complex. Some of the things he’s said are difficult to justify or forgive.
He was remorseful for his comments about 9/11 when he claimed America “brought it upon themselves’’, which all but ended his chances of pursuing fights in the US and still haunt him to this day.
Mundine maintains he was taken out of context and stressed it was a younger man’s mistake.
“I was upset with the way they portrayed me with the 9/11 stuff. I was more talking about the political side of it, how they were going in and killing people for oil and power,” Mundine said.
“I’m not for killing someone innocent. Killing one person is like killing everybody because one life is so precious.
“It was sad, man, and the way it was portrayed really pissed me off. I was never for that s**t, I’m for life, I’m for justice and that wasn’t justice.
“Anyone that commits any terrorism are the ones who should be killed, not vice-versa.”
HIS FINEST MOMENT
Mundine nominated his 2003 victory over Antwun Echols, when he secured his first world title, as his proudest achievement.
There were plenty of memorable moments before and after — like his remarkable 1999 season for the Dragons, his knockout loss to Sven Ottke in 2001 and subsequent comeback, and rivalry with Danny Green — but for Mundine, the victory over Echols validates everything he ever said and always will.
“I said I was going to be world champ and getting that monkey off my back, becoming a world champion, lifted it off my back,” Mundine said.
“You could see the emotion in that fight when I put my hands up because they could never take that away from me, no matter what.
“It didn’t matter what happened after that, my legacy was cemented in stone.”
Mundine said we haven’t seen the last of him. He wants to continue his work with the Indigenous community and has become passionate about mental health. But as a footballer, a boxer, an athlete, it’s all over.
After years of talking, it’s now up to others to decide his legacy. Mundine has done all he can, and there are no more words to be said, games to be played or boxers to be fought.
“I can’t really say how I’ll be remembered,” Mundine said.
“History will judge me. But I know they’ll miss me.”
Originally published as Boxing, league legend Anthony Mundine apologies for controversial comments in emotional farewell
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