Deadline: Punisher girls add glamour to Thornbury punch-fest

If Sam “The Punisher” Abdurlahim’s boxing bout isn’t derailed by the arsonists who set Thornbury’s Furlan Club on fire, fans of the sweet science will get a little extra entertainment on Saturday night.

There’s something for everyone ... or at least something for blokes, at the Punisher’s Thornbury fight on Saturday night.

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest crime buzz.

Boxing with a twist of glamour

There was some consternation as Deadline went to press about the future of Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim’s title fight this weekend

The Furlan Club in Thornbury, which is to host Saturday night’s card, was hit by arsonists in the early hours of Thursday in what is long odds-on to be a personal strike against Abdulrahim.

Among those who will be disappointed at this turn of events are some special ringside guests booked to add what might be described by those in the fight game as a touch of glamour.

Promotional material for the Australasian title fight.

“Come and see the Punisher girls,” urges an online flyer to promote the evening, in which Abdulrahim dukes it out with Savenaca Naliva for an Australasian title

Below are photos of four young women who, we can only guess, are firm friends of the Punisher.

The ladies were doubtless among those relieved when Abdulrahim survived a June, 2022, attempt on his life at the Fawkner Cemetery.

The fighter was peppered with shots as he sat in his car after attending the funeral of his cousin.

Abdulrahim has since made the kind of injury recovery that would have AFL club doctors green with envy.

It has been a big few years for the prominent Middle-eastern organised crime figure.

Some of his business interests were firebombed last year in attacks suspected of having links to Melbourne’s tobacco war.

Abdulrahim was one of the high-profile Mongols bikie gang members who bowed out of the club amid a period of regime change in its Victorian branch in 2022.

Past his bedtime

In this era of rampant youth crime, we all want teenagers tucked up in bed at night and away from trouble. Especially our own teenagers.

A 16-year-old boy got it half right last week when a police check found him getting a good night’s sleep at Somerville, on the Mornington Peninsula.

On the negative side, he was pushing out zeds in a stolen station wagon — almost 300km from his home at Korong Vale in the state’s north.

Korong Vale, by the way, is a flyspeck on the map that has produced one or two trotters, as in harness horses, but not much else. This episode could throw up some names for trotters, which often have slightly eccentric monikers.

How about The Sleepyhead Kid — or Asleep At The Wheel?

Sleepyhead has, incidentally, been charged with car theft. Police dismiss speculation about charges of underage snoring.

He’s got some nerve

A man accused of being one of Victoria’s most prolific conmen just can’t seem to help himself.

This fellow is in more trouble than the early settlers after recently being charged over frauds worth millions of dollars.

Those problems weren’t enough to stop him approaching one of his alleged victims last week and putting the word on her for money to help with his legal fees.

As can be imagined, the request wasn’t welcomed.

“I can’t believe I actually received this email ... absolutely no morals,” said the woman in question.

The Fugly truth

Our spy in the strange world of open water swimming hasn’t seen any evidence of Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in our bay swim events of late.

That’s a pity because his old sparring partner Fugly McHideous is still out there grinding away in the age 50 to 59 division.

Just four seconds separated Dreyfus and McHideous in the Club2Club 1.8km event off Aspendale two years ago.

Our man did notice another familiar name, Channel 9 news director Hugh Nailon, listed as making it to shore and not much more in a recent 1.2km swim off Aspendale.

There was clearly no photoshopping to enhance his time, described by our cruel contact as a painfully slow 29 minutes and 47 seconds.

Lower prices could be the end

Deadline’s rural correspondent Mark the shepherd has a warning about buying cheap and nasty Chinese-made synthetic rope from the usual mega hardware outlets.

It turns out that one product that looks strong and durable in the airconditioned luxury of Aisle 6 isn’t so hot when it’s exposed to an Australian summer for a few months.

Mark says he learned this the hard way after returning home to the farm from a brief break to find 40 sheep had died of thirst.

Why? Because a length of the dud rope had crumbled to dust, allowing the water pump pipes it was holding up to fall apart and drain all the water onto the ground.

Bad enough for livestock water — but what if someone used the same rope to make a kids’ swing? It would hold any weight you liked when you put it up but would fall apart a few months later.

That, says Mark the shepherd, would be a crime. The increasingly common one of goods not being fit for purpose.

Vale Harold Mitchell

The late business leviathan Harold Mitchell spent a lifetime winning the respect of almost every sector of Melbourne life.

More evidence of that came in a strong death notice from Mick Gatto published last week.

“Harold was a giant among men that helped worthy causes and never judged,” Gatto wrote.