What is it about football players who suddenly think they can give the game away and become boxers?
Anthony Mundine is of course the most famous of these self-aggrandizers, Barry Hall another although he abandoned his ring career before it even began, Sonny Bill-Williams and now Wallaby star, or should I say former Wallaby star, Quade Cooper.
For those who live outside the zone where Rugby Union is played and admired, Quade Cooper is an outstanding Rugby player out of Queensland who on the surface appears to have trouble adapting himself to the team environment which exists at the highest level of Rugby in Australia.
He has been plagued with injuries after performing poorly at the last Rugby World Cup and has now spat the dummy because, apparently he hasn’t been offered a contract by the Australian Rugby Union juicy enough to satisfy his high profile lifestyle.
I am not a fan of Union although I appreciate any high level sport but Cooper at his best does make the game easier to watch and there is no doubt about his ability when he is on song. He also used to shag Olympic swimming champion Stephanie Rice which for me is a far greater feather in his cap than any performance of note he has displayed on the rugby field.
But now following in the footsteps of other foot-balling alumni turned pugilists, he has announced that he will partake in a professional boxing match next year on the undercard of a Sonny Bill Williams fight. As if it wasn’t already enough of a joke!
I don’t begrudge anyone, least of all professional footballers, for throwing their hat in the ring to go a few rounds for whatever reason takes their fancy but the way they do it and the way it is promoted leaves me cold.
Mundine, the flawed character that he is at least gave football away to make boxing his career and only the meanest of people would suggest that he hasn’t made a decent fist (if you pardon the pun!) of it and has outstanding ability in the ring even if it appears he lacks the heart of a champion and his brain seems to be at odds with what his body is trying to do most of the time. That’s before even discussing his apparent lack of intelligence and his habit of speaking without thinking and his lack of knowledge or balanced thought on world events, his opinion of which he seems very keen to share with a very uninterested world.
Mundine is the worst kind of sportsman. Divisive, outspoken, boastful, ignorant. I have heard that in private he is a completely different individual. Sincere, decent and honest. If only he had tapped this natural personality and shown it to the public. Perhaps then he wouldn’t be regarded as the sporting joke he has become and would have reached the heights he so desires in the eyes of the Australian public.
I don’t know if Mundine has been badly advised or whether the poor caricature of Muhammad Ali which he has acted out over the last decade is his own idea but it hasn’t worked. I, like many others will be glad when the freak-show is finally over.
Sonny Bill-Williams is a Kiwi who has flitted in and out of Rugby League and is now back in the NRL after a stint playing Rugby Union in his native land which included a Rugby World Cup victory with the All Blacks. A very talented sportsman indeed!
He is notorious in the Sydney game for walking out on his contract with Canterbury Bankstown several years ago, an act which left a foul taste in many a mouth and soured his reputation even after the protestations of persecution he made on national television. He looked and acted like a spoilt little boy who had been told by all and sundry, family, coaches and hangers- on how good he was all his life yet the basics of being a man, standing by your mates and honouring contracts seem to be a blaise matter to him, a life lesson that had never sunk in.
Somewhere along this long road of sporting notoriety which he is travelling along, he has taken up the noble art of boxing and is in fact the current New Zealand Heavyweight Champion which really doesn’t say too much that is positive about boxing in that country.
My main gripe in this matter is that fellows like Sonny Bill Williams, a champion elite athlete, trained and conditioned to the highest levels possible in the sporting world, after a few years doing a bit of boxing training to break up the tedium of regular football training, suddenly fancy themselves as the new Jack Dempsey and decide to have a crack in the ring.
They are carefully managed and promoted, a hand picked opponent is found, one who has a negative record, that is has lost more bouts than he has won, is of limited ability, looks like he has spent the last three years in the pub and just gotten out of bed at midday!
These fellows, in boxing terminology called “tomato cans”, are invariably dispatched by the glamour boys of Rugby who are then promoted as possibly the greatest athletic specimens in history.
Meanwhile, real boxers with real ability are still ploughing a lonely furrow through the depths of their chosen sport, rarely written up in the paper or noticed by the leading sporting journalists of the day and are left to make ends meet on their own without promotion or help provided to those “pretenders” from the football world who gladly fill the papers with their inconsequential feats and have the press fawning at their every word, which are usually about how good they are!
It rubs me the wrong way. It does nothing for the sport of boxing and in fact, in my opinion makes a joke of it.
Now we have have Quade Cooper having a crack in the ring. I have no doubt that whoever he fights will not be someone who has been spreading fear through the boxing ranks in Australia and rightly so. A novice such as Cooper should not have to face an experienced opponent in his first bout but I only hope, given the fact he shares a manager with Sonny Bill Williams this will not be another circus that demeans the sport and makes aficionados weep.
Sonny Bill Williams is a New Zealand Heavyweight Champion who has never fought a world ranked opponent. Why he boxes I don’t know. Money probably has much to do with it but until he takes the game seriously and leaves his football days behind him he will never have the respect of the people who most matter. The fans of boxing .
Let’s hope Quade Cooper is merely flirting with the martial sports and takes it for what it is, a break from the pressure of the game in which God has given him real ability and leaves real stuff for those who love boxing and only care for it’s future and authenticity.
Have a nice day.
Anthony Mundine is of course the most famous of these self-aggrandizers, Barry Hall another although he abandoned his ring career before it even began, Sonny Bill-Williams and now Wallaby star, or should I say former Wallaby star, Quade Cooper.
For those who live outside the zone where Rugby Union is played and admired, Quade Cooper is an outstanding Rugby player out of Queensland who on the surface appears to have trouble adapting himself to the team environment which exists at the highest level of Rugby in Australia.
He has been plagued with injuries after performing poorly at the last Rugby World Cup and has now spat the dummy because, apparently he hasn’t been offered a contract by the Australian Rugby Union juicy enough to satisfy his high profile lifestyle.
I am not a fan of Union although I appreciate any high level sport but Cooper at his best does make the game easier to watch and there is no doubt about his ability when he is on song. He also used to shag Olympic swimming champion Stephanie Rice which for me is a far greater feather in his cap than any performance of note he has displayed on the rugby field.
But now following in the footsteps of other foot-balling alumni turned pugilists, he has announced that he will partake in a professional boxing match next year on the undercard of a Sonny Bill Williams fight. As if it wasn’t already enough of a joke!
I don’t begrudge anyone, least of all professional footballers, for throwing their hat in the ring to go a few rounds for whatever reason takes their fancy but the way they do it and the way it is promoted leaves me cold.
Mundine, the flawed character that he is at least gave football away to make boxing his career and only the meanest of people would suggest that he hasn’t made a decent fist (if you pardon the pun!) of it and has outstanding ability in the ring even if it appears he lacks the heart of a champion and his brain seems to be at odds with what his body is trying to do most of the time. That’s before even discussing his apparent lack of intelligence and his habit of speaking without thinking and his lack of knowledge or balanced thought on world events, his opinion of which he seems very keen to share with a very uninterested world.
Mundine is the worst kind of sportsman. Divisive, outspoken, boastful, ignorant. I have heard that in private he is a completely different individual. Sincere, decent and honest. If only he had tapped this natural personality and shown it to the public. Perhaps then he wouldn’t be regarded as the sporting joke he has become and would have reached the heights he so desires in the eyes of the Australian public.
I don’t know if Mundine has been badly advised or whether the poor caricature of Muhammad Ali which he has acted out over the last decade is his own idea but it hasn’t worked. I, like many others will be glad when the freak-show is finally over.
Sonny Bill-Williams is a Kiwi who has flitted in and out of Rugby League and is now back in the NRL after a stint playing Rugby Union in his native land which included a Rugby World Cup victory with the All Blacks. A very talented sportsman indeed!
He is notorious in the Sydney game for walking out on his contract with Canterbury Bankstown several years ago, an act which left a foul taste in many a mouth and soured his reputation even after the protestations of persecution he made on national television. He looked and acted like a spoilt little boy who had been told by all and sundry, family, coaches and hangers- on how good he was all his life yet the basics of being a man, standing by your mates and honouring contracts seem to be a blaise matter to him, a life lesson that had never sunk in.
Somewhere along this long road of sporting notoriety which he is travelling along, he has taken up the noble art of boxing and is in fact the current New Zealand Heavyweight Champion which really doesn’t say too much that is positive about boxing in that country.
My main gripe in this matter is that fellows like Sonny Bill Williams, a champion elite athlete, trained and conditioned to the highest levels possible in the sporting world, after a few years doing a bit of boxing training to break up the tedium of regular football training, suddenly fancy themselves as the new Jack Dempsey and decide to have a crack in the ring.
They are carefully managed and promoted, a hand picked opponent is found, one who has a negative record, that is has lost more bouts than he has won, is of limited ability, looks like he has spent the last three years in the pub and just gotten out of bed at midday!
These fellows, in boxing terminology called “tomato cans”, are invariably dispatched by the glamour boys of Rugby who are then promoted as possibly the greatest athletic specimens in history.
Meanwhile, real boxers with real ability are still ploughing a lonely furrow through the depths of their chosen sport, rarely written up in the paper or noticed by the leading sporting journalists of the day and are left to make ends meet on their own without promotion or help provided to those “pretenders” from the football world who gladly fill the papers with their inconsequential feats and have the press fawning at their every word, which are usually about how good they are!
It rubs me the wrong way. It does nothing for the sport of boxing and in fact, in my opinion makes a joke of it.
Now we have have Quade Cooper having a crack in the ring. I have no doubt that whoever he fights will not be someone who has been spreading fear through the boxing ranks in Australia and rightly so. A novice such as Cooper should not have to face an experienced opponent in his first bout but I only hope, given the fact he shares a manager with Sonny Bill Williams this will not be another circus that demeans the sport and makes aficionados weep.
Sonny Bill Williams is a New Zealand Heavyweight Champion who has never fought a world ranked opponent. Why he boxes I don’t know. Money probably has much to do with it but until he takes the game seriously and leaves his football days behind him he will never have the respect of the people who most matter. The fans of boxing .
Let’s hope Quade Cooper is merely flirting with the martial sports and takes it for what it is, a break from the pressure of the game in which God has given him real ability and leaves real stuff for those who love boxing and only care for it’s future and authenticity.
Have a nice day.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 