Danny Green lashes out at Anthony Mundine, referee after controversial rematch

DANNY Green won, but he’s not happy. He slammed Anthony Mundine and referee Frank Garza following Friday’s rematch.

Green was thrilled he overcame every obstacle put in his way.

DANNY Green has lashed out at Anthony Mundine and referee Frank Garza in the aftermath of a fiery rematch between the two Australian boxing legends on Friday night.

Green won via majority decision, getting his revenge over Mundine after the former NRL star beat the West Australian in the pair’s only previous fight back in 2006. But despite being the bookmakers’ favourite heading in, Green looked like he might not make it past the first round.

He copped an illegal blow early when referee Frank Garza called a stoppage, Mundine rocking Green with a left hand when the 43-year-old wasn’t looking.

Green stumbled and his camp called the ringside doctor to his corner. The medical expert reportedly wanted to stop the fight, but Green demanded he be allowed to continue.

Speaking to Karl Langdon on 6PR radio on the weekend, Green said the referee wanted to disqualify Mundine rather than just hand him the one point penalty he ended up deciding on, but he was never going to let the fight end that way, slamming his opponent for the “cheap shot”.

Mundine catches an off-guard Green.

“It was a very, very, very cheap shot,” Green said. “The referee was going to call the fight off and disqualify him and I’ve gone, ‘No, that cannot happen. It’ll be a nightmare, there’ll be riots in the stands, there’ll be riots around the country and there’ll be bodies in the street.

“It couldn’t happen. I had to hang tough and pull it together and somehow try and keep going.”

Green also took aim at Garza for not giving him enough time to recover from the crushing blow, which he said left him concussed.

“The referee also should have given me five minutes time to recover,” Green said. “When you get a low blow you get five minutes, when you get literally knocked unconscious he didn’t give me a second.

“It was disgraceful from the referee — he was a very poor referee and it was disappointing. It literally could have cost me the fight but I just had to stay in the game.

“I would rather end on my back than win the fight by disqualification so early.”

Plenty agreed with Green’s assessment that Mundine’s first round blow was poor form.

Total cheapshot from Mundine. Green never saw it coming. Came during a grapple.

— Bad Left Hook (@badlefthook) February 3, 2017

As if we can't hate Mundine enough already. What an absolute dog #MundineGreen2

— Matty Holdsworth (@matty_capnews) February 3, 2017

Mundine... seriously? That's not on.

— Shayne Hope 📰 (@shayne_hope) February 3, 2017

Green said he fought “purely on balls and instinct” after the punch, even though he knew he was concussed and couldn’t feel his legs for a majority of the fight. He said Mundine only let fly with the illegal bomb because Green tagged him earlier with a nice blow of his own.

“I watched the replay so many times, he loaded that shot up … he tried very hard and I don’t know why he did it. I hit him in the first 30 seconds with a really nice shot and I hurt him,” Green said.

“I watched his eyes and I think he did it out of shock. He thought, ‘Any chance I get to crack this bloke ...’ and he took that chance. It was a disgraceful shot.

“I think he had a shock and a bit of fear and panic. He saw an opportunity to have a shot and he took it, and it was the wrong thing to do.

“It made the victory just so much more fulfilling (winning after facing such adversity) and I think we gave the crowd a pretty solid hit-out.

“I was severely concussed. I was fighting purely on balls and instinct.”

It wasn’t just the referee’s handling of the controversial opening round incident that had Green riled up, taking exception to some double standards he believes were applied during the fight.

Green says he made Garza aware of Mundine’s tactic where he keeps his head low, around groin level, to make it difficult to hit him. The eventual winner recalled how he told the official of his plan to hold Mundine’s head down if this happened, and Garza agreed, saying he supported the plan.

Both men had their moments in an entertaining fight.

“He (Garza) took a point off him for literally knocking me unconscious with a blatant foul then gives me a foul when I told the referee that’s what I’m going to do and he agreed with me in the changerooms,” Green complained.

“Mate, the ref was all over the shop.”

While Green had plenty of complaints, so too did Mundine, who revealed he is still weighing up whether or not to appeal the judges’ decision.

The scorecards read 94-94, 96-94 and 98-90 in Green’s favour, despite there being plenty of people believing the ex-St George star deserved the win. The 94-94 and 96-94 scores are defendable, but almost nobody could justify the 98-90 score dished out.

“I whipped his a*** for the second time, two-nil, two zero ... It ruins the credibility of the sport judging like this, officiating like this. It dampens a great sport, man,” Mundine told Shannon Brenton on the Caravan Conversations podcast.

“I knew I won the fight, he knew I won the fight, deep down in his heart he knew I won that fight. I battered his a***, he was beat up, blood everywhere, probably busted his nose, broke his nose.

“I don’t know what more I have to do. I dominated that fight.”

Mundine didn’t shut the door on another potential rematch to complete the pair’s trilogy, but Green was adamant we won’t see the two in the ring together again.