Boxing

Just when womens boxing thought it was making progress, it has been dealt a brutal double left jab right cross combo right where it hurts the most – between the legs.

Next year female boxing will make its Olympic debut at the London Games, but celebrations and preparations have been soured by a push by the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) to have the competitors wear skirts in the ring.

I kind of thought if there was one sport you didn’t want to piss off then it’d be boxing and the girls aren’t happy.

Continue reading "Boxing skirts the boundaries of credibility with sexist rule" »

In his life before politics Tony Abbott was something of an amateur boxer. So it’s fitting that as opposition leader he has chosen just to punch on and attack the Government.

The normal necessities required of an Opposition Leader – to be occasionally positive, to be temperate in tone, to formulate policy and to back claims with facts seem to be of little interest to Mr Abbott. Not a day goes by without some photo opportunity of Abbott and a fish, or box of Weet-Bix or some awkward embrace with factory workers.

Abbott calls for an election every day as if to will one on the country and acts as if he’s in the middle of an election campaign. Despite all the evidence to the contrary he believes that the Parliament should dissolve itself and yield to his immediate self interest.

Continue reading "Abbott isn’t boxing clever" »

Did you hand over $50 to watch the Danny Green fight last night? If you did - and watched all 29 uninteresting seconds of it - you might be feeling a bit of a mug. But so did Green, at least for a while.

Today’s red-hot story online is last night’s non-fight between Green and his overweight rival, Paul Briggs. Green was initially fuming, claiming there was “no way” his jab a matter of seconds into the fight could have knocked Briggs out. But Briggs went down and stayed down.

Adding massive insult to the apparently slight injury, bookies suspended betting on the fight hours before it started after Briggs suddenly firmed for a first round knockout. The Daily Telegraph has detailed coverage of the whole affair, including a video interview with a fuming Green. But today Green said he has watched the footage again and thinks it was a legitimate blow that knocked Briggs out. Maybe the chap doesn’t know his own strength?

Continue reading "Election-Free Zone: Green sees red over blue" »

It’s not hard to get a fight in Fred Brophy’s boxing tent – the last travelling tent left in Australia, or the world. It just gets hard when you get your fight. I wanted a fight.

I saw Brophy first at the Birdsville Races in 2008 but I knew about the tent – the round or two for a pound or two – to borrow a line from the other great boxing tent man Jimmy Sharman.

I talked about wanting a fight in the tent before heading up to Mt Isa for the rodeo, from the comfort of inner city Melbourne. No one believed me.  I’m a girl and I’ve never even done a boxing class.

Continue reading "How I started Ladies’ Day at Fred Brophy’s boxing tent" »

What the hell happened?

Like the other 15,000 fight fans at Acer Arena last night, I’m still trying to work out how a tattooed knockabout - who nobody rated a chance – managed to knock Roy Jones Jr out.

Oh – and he did it in less time than it takes to brush your teeth.

Continue reading "Green wins with courage" »

Welcome to Thursday @ The Punch

Fact: today is the 34th anniversary of ‘Thriller in Manila’.  Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali fought for 132 minutes for $US5 million. It’s been described as the ‘fight of the century’. What’s your take on the event or boxing in general? Share your thoughts here.

A funny thing happened on the way out of the glamorous Punch TV studios yesterday. As we stood in the carpark waiting for Penbo to remember where he’d left the Commodore, a heavy-looking dude called out: “Oy, what’s this show The Punch and how come I’m not on it?”

It was world cruiserweight champion Danny Green, stepping out of the shadows with his hand extended and a mischievous grin spreading across his face.

We explained that despite Penbo and Tors being, ahem, avid fight fans, it was in fact a politics and current affairs show (although I reckon there’s a spot for Greeny on the panel somewhere down the track.)

The mood was upbeat until we got around to the topic of the paedophile Dennis Ferguson, whose situation we had just spent a fair slice of the show discussing with Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek.

Continue reading "Sparring in the carpark with world champ Danny Green" »

Is it cos he is black? Is it cos he is Muslim? Is it cos he is free?

You suspect Anthony Mundine would like to believe his immense unpopularity in this country is attributable to redneck prejudice against all these things, but the truth is simpler.

We can’t cop Mundine because he isn’t what he says he is – a world champion. Not even close. In the alphabet soup of boxing, he has latched on to obscure titles simply because other, better fighters simply didn’t know (or care) they existed. Claiming them as world titles is like getting into law at Bond University and telling everyone you graduated from Harvard.

Continue reading "The real reason we can’t cop Anthony Mundine" »