Horn inspires Aussie boxing’s next wave

Murray Wenzel | December 31, 2022

Australia’s boxing mainstays are adamant the next golden era for the sport was seeded five years ago when Jeff Horn punched it back into relevance.

Horn’s underdog defeat of Manny Pacquiao at a heaving Suncorp Stadium in 2017 remains one of Australian sport’s great fairytale stories.

But the former Brisbane schoolteacher laments he never got the respect or recognition he deserved, still shaking his head at “silly American commentators for saying different things” as they refused to reconcile the result.

Scan over today’s top domestic talents though and it usually leads you back to Horn.

And admirers believe that respect will come retrospectively if the next crop, led by Tim Tszyu, deliver on their promise in 2023. 

Tszyu showed he was more than just the son of Kostya with a thorough defeat of Horn two years ago in Townsville.

It launched a world title tilt that was due to peak in January, although his undisputed super-welterweight champion fight against Jermell Charlo is now on hold after the belt-holder broke his hand.

He would be the first Australian in the 19-year, four-belt era to unify a division if he beats Charlo, although the American could be stripped of his WBO title and instead send Tszyu onto a collision course with Tony Harrison.

It goes far deeper than Tszyu.

Ebanie Bridges is the owner of the IBF bantamweight world title after beating compatriot Shannon O’Connell earlier this month in a fight dubbed the biggest in Australian women’s boxing history.

Cherneka Johnson has already defended her IBF super-bantamweight belt once.

IBF and The Ring champion Jai Opetaia is considered the world’s No.1 cruiserweight and will defend his title after fighting through a twice-broken jaw to earn the belt earlier this year.

George Kambosos lost his three lightweight belts to American superstar Devin Haney this year. 

Liam Wilson is the latest to earn a title shot, fighting Mexican ironman Emanuel Navarrete on February 3 for the vacant WBO junior lightweight belt.

Liam Paro (super-lightweight) and Moloney twins Jason (bantam) and Andrew (super fly) could all land title shots in their next fights.

Justis Huni this year pushed into the world heavyweight rankings after just seven professional fights, while Demsey McKean sits there undefeated from 22 fights too.

Harry Garside and Skye Nicolson have parlayed their Olympic attention into promising professional careers.

Paul Fleming has rekindled his hopes, Michael Zerafa has middleweight world title ambitions and emerging super bantamweight Sam Goodman is already world-ranked.

Stevie Spark was plucked from Toowoomba by big-time English promoter Eddie Hearn and won the WBA inter-continental super lightweight title on his American debut against the hometown favourite.

It’s led to a constant stream of big fights, satisfying an audience not used to being starved like it has in recent years.

“We are in the clasp of another golden era,” Glen Jennings told AAP.

Jennings managed Tim’s father Kostya and now runs operations for his son, as well as managing O’Connell.

“After Kostya retired there was a gap. But we were spoiled, accustomed to the fact he was around and fighting,” Jennings said of the undisputed light-welterweight world champion.

“All of a sudden he’s not and there’s a big hole when there’s nobody of that magnitude and you don’t have it for a long time.

“It was quite depressing. Even just as a fan it was heartbreaking, we weren’t going to see him again.

“All the thrills we got were gone and I went on to other things. It’s hard when you reach heights like we did with Kostya.

“But five years ago Tim and I had lunch and he asked if I’d manage him. It’s been deja vu in a lot of ways.”

Jennings noted the Danny Green-Anthony Mundine rivalry, as well as the career of unified middleweight champion Daniel Geale.

“But the next real kick along was Jeff beating Manny,” Jennings said of Australian boxing’s resurgence.

“Jeff never got the recognition he should have got. It always looked like he had jagged it, whereas Zab Judah just got knocked stupid (by Kostya Tszyu in their 2001 unification fight).

“On the back of Tim fighting Charlo (if it goes ahead) and winning those belts, Australian boxing will be talked about again.

“It’ll be the start of a whole new era of boxing being looked at in a different light.”

Is it all just hype though?

Johnny Lewis, a coach of six world champions including Jeff Fenech and Tszyu, doesn’t think so.

“It went through a lull – and the fight game is renowned for this – sometimes when you think you’re a nail away from sealing the coffin, someone will come in and take it to great heights,” he told AAP.

“It (Horn’s 2017 win) was a wonderful performance and I don’t think we saw that sort of thing in Jeff again.

“It’s the fight that will define him and captured the nation’s imagination.”

Lewis is staunchly opposed to modern boxing’s “alphabet organisations” that mean there are now multiple world champions in each weight class.

“We’ll never know who the real world champion is,” he lamented.

“Some win the three belts, some win one and are then denied by challengers who don’t want to get beat.

“In the 50s and 60s you had to earn that title shot, come through and beat the top 10 contenders.

“Until it gets back to that it’ll be short of it. But it’s not the fighters’ faults and it’s certainly the case that we have quite a few at the moment (that are worthy).”

Fellow trainer Noel Thornberry, who steered Alex Leapai to Australia’s first heavyweight world title fight in 106 years, also has vivid memories of those times.

“There’s been a bit of hype and in the future we will look back and think it was a bit of a golden era,” he said.

“But there’s been some bloody good ones … in the 1960s you had Lionel Rose and Johnny Famechon.”

Thornberry was in the room when the prospect of Horn fighting Pacquiao was first floated to the Filipino’s manager Bob Arum.

“Jeff’s win is probably the highest profile one, almost,” he said.

“Maybe Rose when he beat Fighting Karada in Japan, as a 19-year-old on three weeks’ notice … he had 250,000 people welcoming him home in Melbourne.”

“But (when Horn won) all I could think about was all the eyes in this country are on this event and it’s got to be great for the sport.”

Thornberry has worn every hat as part of a famous boxing family, and observed the changes to a complicated industry closely.

“Alex was (out on his own); it was very, very hard work without any support from TV platforms so we did it all ourselves,” he said.

“It was a nightmare actually, but we got through it and did what no other Aussie had done since 1908.”

He’s surprised boxing didn’t suffer a fatal blow when popular free-to-air television shows hit the canvas just as colour television was introduced in the 1970s.

“You take rugby league off commercial TV for 40 years and imagine the damage done.It’d be dead, same as any other sport,” he said.

“Boxing was a massive sport. TV Ringside, Channel Nine, Channel 0 and Channel 2 all wanted a fight of the week.

“That’s what defines the household name; the guys’ mum and the kids know.

“But it’s coming back thanks to social media platforms; people putting up highlights and people are going, ‘holy s***, that was spectacular’.

“People are getting to see it again.”

Thornberry said the quality of boxing dropped when the demand for weekly free-to-air fights soared.

But Jennings, noting Hearn’s arrival in Australia with Matchroom Boxing, observes that now the market has shifted.

“It’s a strange one, but it’s a compliment that they are here (Matchroom) because there are more boxers than slots available,” he said.

“I get mugged by requests to get onto a No Limit (Tszyu’s promoter) fight and he’ll (Hearn) give those guys great platforms.”

Watching Horn live, as young amateurs Tszyu and Huni did on the sunny Sunday in Brisbane, helped too.

“It was very big for me,” Huni told AAP.

“Right here in our backyard, against my idol Manny.

“The boxers we have here … we have the talent but if you don’t have the belief, it’s nothing.

“Timmy, Kambosos, none of us would be here if it wasn’t for that and I don’t think he knows what he’s actually done for us.”

Horn thinks he probably does, it’s just taken some time to sink in.

“I wasn’t thinking of changing Australian boxing, or its culture or the perception of it,” he told AAP.

“Bringing Manny here, people thought it was craziness, unheard of. But we did it.

“It gave them (other Australians) the belief. Before I won that fight we were just the opposition that got the shot and lost.

“But I was taking that victory no matter what.”