Justis Huni’s surprise response to ‘scary’ drive-by house shooting

Just last week, Justis Huni’s family home was sprayed with bullets and the Aussie boxing star has revealed how he reacted to the harrowing scene.

Justis Huni has brushed off the drama. Photo: Matthew Poon and Getty Images

Justis Huni has brushed off a drive-by shooting at his house and has declared his eagle-eyed focus on his blockbuster Australian heavyweight bout against Joe Goodall.

Huni’s house was declared a crime scene after five bullets were found in his living room on Thursday morning.

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A video released by police showed a car pulling up to the home at 4am and firing nine shots before speeding away.

Justis’ father and coach Rocki opened up on the incident the following day but couldn’t think of any reason why his son’s upcoming fight could have been behind the shooting.

“I heard some shots, I didn’t really think anything of if,” Rocki Huni told Nine.

“When I went outside to investigate I didn’t see anything, by then we called the cops and then when my wife checked and she saw the holes through the curtains and the windows. There are cops all over my house with forensics right now.

“There’s 10 of us living in the house, I’ve got my daughter staying with us — she’s got two kids, one, six months, the other eight-years-old. It was crazy because right where one of those shots when through is where we feed the baby early in the morning.

“I’ve been just rattling my brain like, have we done something? But I just cannot work it out. I’ve gone through different scenarios in my head. In all my time, nothing like this has ever happened before.

“I’m not on social media, so I don’t see everything that’s going on, but there’s nothing. They (Huni and Goodall) are two guys that like each other, they’re a week away from going to war but nothing has been taken personally.”

Justis Huni has ready to go. Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images

Coming just days out from the biggest fight of his professional career, the harrowing incident hasn't appeared to have rattled Justis however, as the 23-year-old returned to training the following morning.

“I’m feeling good, I’m feeling energised,” Huni said at the press conference on Monday. “I’ve haven’t thought about that since it’s happened. And I’m just looking forward to Wednesday night, because it’s gonna be a good one.

“I was I was actually sparring the morning that it happened. So it just shows where my head’s at and that I’m fully focused on this fight and how serious this fight is.”

Huni’s promoter Dean Lonergan added: “I don’t know the feelings that these guys are going through. I’ve got no doubt you’ve got a huge range of emotions, it was a pretty scary thing.

“Both Rocki and Justis assured me it hasn’t affected them whatsoever.”

The former Australian heavyweight champion vacated his title before Kris Terzievski’s victory over Paul Gallen last month, but is searching for higher honours after the fight with Goodall this week.

A win will likely see the winner ranked in the top 15 of the IBF, WBO and WBC rankings, meaning they would be eligible to fight for the world title.

Justis Huni addresses the media after the press conference. Picture: Matthew Poon

And with that on the line, there will be no going easy from the Goodall side of the equation.

Asked about how he would react if the shoe was on the other foot, Goodall said he couldn’t focus on anything but the fight.

“I’m in fight mode now and I know what fight work mode feels like. It’s tunnel vision. You can’t focus on anything. Absolutely anything. That could be any threats from the outside, you’re not focusing on it. He sparred that particular morning, I’m sure his mind is on the job.”

Goodall’s manager Steve Scanlan said: “It was just business as usual for us.

“I was actually at the airport and my phone was going berserk going through security so I knew something serious had happened.

“We’ve been training for this for nine months now. There was nothing that was going to stop us going into this fight.”

Originally published as Justis Huni’s surprise response to ‘scary’ drive-by house shooting