New scent emanates but the smell of belief was always there for Jeff Horn

It was the perfect epilogue to Jeff Horn’s fighting fairytale.

Jeff Horn reflects on his achievement with his trainer Glenn Rushton, at Jeff's home in Acacia Ridge, Brisbane yesterday. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen.

It was the perfect epilogue to Jeff Horn’s fighting fairytale. It happened yesterday afternoon on the front porch steps of the new welterweight champion of the world’s fixer-upper home in Brisbane’s working class Acacia Ridge, a still moment in the eye of an international storm when the champ and his trainer breathed and thanked each other for turning world sport on its head.

“Didn’t we punch above our weight?” said journeyman trainer Glenn Rushton, embracing the man he loves like a son whose bruised red eye had only just opened up enough for him to see his coach with clear vision. “Now they know who Jeff Horn is don’t they.”

“You stuck by my side from day one,” Jeff Horn said, his eyes clear enough to spot the tears forming in his coach’s eyes.

“I’ll always be here,” choked the coach made of steel, wrapping his arms around his champion. “When you’re 60, and if I’m still alive, I’ll be there then, too. Mates forever.”

“I reckon,” Horn said.

By the porch steps, Jeff’s father, Jeff Horn Sr, cupped a hand over The Hornet’s functioning left eye.

“Can you see all right?”

The world champion focused on a tree in his front yard and nodded yes. “Great to see him looking out of both eyes again,” said Rushton.

The champ couldn’t remember much of Sunday’s bloody and controversial underdog victory over Manny Pacquiao. He wasn’t mulling over American commentaries discussing how the fight was rigged or how it wasn’t. All he was doing was looking at his world champion’s belt.

“That’s the only thing I can visualise from the fight, me holding the belt,” Horn said. “I can remember me punching him and him punching me but I can’t remember winning in a specific way. All I can remember is the belt going around my waist and being lifted up. Before the fight I had a picture in my head of myself being lifted up and having the belt put around my waist. I’d visualised that.”

The champ could still remember The House of Dreams, Glenn Rushton’s South Brisbane boxing gym that Jeff Horn walked into more than a decade ago to seek guidance from the journeyman coach on how he might defend himself against the bullies who plagued his teens.

A new scent blends now with the smell of old sweat and hard, hard work in the fibres of that canvas boxing ring where The Hornet developed a sting sharp enough to conquer a boxing immortal they call Pacman. It’s the sweet smell of success.

“We take nothing when we go except our memories,” Rushton said. “I get Jeff. I was bullied too when I was younger. You just say, ‘No, I’m not gonna lie down. I’m gonna bounce back’. You do not kneel. I saw similarities in Jeff. It wasn’t that long ago that Jeff said to me he always felt he’d do something great with his life. I felt a cold chill come over me because I had exactly the same thought myself. It wasn’t by accident that Jeff wandered into my gym that day.”

The coach had only one question for Horn in 2006 when he first saw him walloping a punching bag with little skill but great sting. That question was, “What do you believe?” Horn believed every word because everything the coach said came true. Olympic Games? Tick. Professional bouts? Tick. Champion of the bloody world? Tick, tick, tick.

It was belief that got Jeff Horn through round nine on Sunday afternoon, the brutal round that will go down in Australian sporting folklore as the three minutes where The Hornet buckled but did not break amid a Pacquiao storm of bloody connections.

“Belief plus commitment, that’s when the magic happens,” Rushton said.

“That’s why I chose to study a teaching degree,” Horn said. “All I wanted to do as a teacher was pass on that belief to someone else and help them be the best they can be and I feel like I’ve achieved something in boxing that would have taken me 10 or 20 years to achieve in a teaching scenario.”

“The greatest thing in life is having hope,” Rushton said. “How many people are coming up to us and telling us you brought them hope.” The champ nodded.

“I told you one day I’d ask for a bigger effort,” Rushton said. “I called the favour in didn’t I? And you did, you stepped up.”