Mundine Ready For Step Up In Class
ANTHONY Mundine admits he needs a defining fight against a high-profile opponent to help him achieve his goal of achieving boxing greatness.
Having successfully defended his World Boxing Association super middleweight title with a unanimous points decision over Sam Soliman at Vodafone Arena, Mundine is considering a drop down to middleweight division so he can fight the likes of Americans Ronald Wright and Kelly Pavlik, or Joe Calzaghe of Wales.
Mundine said his rivalry with Soliman was now a "closed chapter" after three wins, and acknowledged he had to work towards fighting bigger names and reaping bigger pay days.
"If it don't make money, it don't make sense," he said.
"I'm after money, so bring on those guys who are going to make me money."
Mundine said he needed to contest a major bout to prove himself a "defining fighter", but admitted doing so would be difficult in the United States or United Kingdom because he was not a big name internationally.
"So I've just got to keep racking up victories, do what I did here, be dominant and fight good contenders and treat them like they're pretenders," he said.
"When they see me fight they'll know I'm a great fighter and I'm looking for greatness."
The bout was a more even contest than last year's fight, which Mundine won by knock-out, as Soliman started well and finished strongly, while Mundine controlled the middle rounds.
Both fighters claimed victory after the 12th round, but the judges, from Thailand, the Phillippines and Korea, awarded the fight Mundine's way 116-112, 116-112, 117-112.
Mundine said he won comfortably, but the Soliman camp was bitterly disappointed by the verdict, as they claimed they threw three times as many punches.
Soliman felt the judges ignored the punches he landed but counted Mundine's, while the Victorian's trainer Dave Hedgcock said the perception The Man threw a more powerful punch should not be taken into account.
"If you land five punches in a round and someone else lands 12, isn't that the point of boxing?" Hedgcock said.
"Isn't that scored on points not power. Otherwise you wouldn't have weight divisions would you?
"Boxing's about scoring points, he (Soliman) scored the more points. He threw the more punches and landed the more punches."
Both boxers claimed the proof of their punching was on their faces, as both were mostly mark-free afterwards.
Mundine had a nick near his left eye - he claimed from Soliman's elbow - but said he should be on the catwalk given how good he looked.
Although Mundine acknowledged the public would not want to see a fourth fight between the pair, Soliman indicated he wanted another re-match at his preferred weight.
"When I go back to my weight, middleweight, and he thinks he's going to come down to middle, so he won't have the title to be doing that," he said.
"I don't want no title to knock him out, I just want to knock him out, and if he comes down to my weight he wouldn't be strong enough."
Soliman also thrived on enjoying the home-town support of the crowd, many of whom jeered when the decision was announced.
"He might have got the decision but on the crowd support and every other judge in Australia that have sent text messages and told us who won the fight...," he said.
"To have 8,000 people chanting 'Sammy', there's no better buzz, no better high, it makes all the hard work worth it and makes it all so special."