By Dan Ambrose: If 38-year-old Anthony “The Man” Mundine (46-6, 27 KO’s) is going to get his dream fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. then he’s going to need some kind of miracle at this point in his career, as Mundine took a pounding tonight by former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (38-4, 22 KO’s) in losing a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision at the Entertainment Centre, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.
The worst part of it was that Clottey beat Mundine in front of his own Australian fans, and he beat him pretty badly. Clottey knocked Mundine down 5 times in the fight in putting him down in the 3rd, two times in the 6th, another time in the 8th and a final time in the 10th. The judge’s scores were 116-108, 115-109, 117-108.
Clottey, who has only fought three times in the past four years since losing a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision to Manny Pacquiao in 2010, took the fight to Mundine immediately and put big time pressure on the Australian fighter. Mundine was wearing slip on tennis shoes for some reason, and he couldn’t handle the pressure from Clottey. That much was apparent from the start. Clottey was getting to the slower, upright Mundine with double and triple hooks to the head and body. Mundine had never seen that of an offensive arsenal while fighting in the super middleweight division for many years. Clottey was lucky not to have lost points because some of his debilitating body shots were straying low at times.
In hindsight, Mundine should have picked another 40-year-old to fight instead of facing the still very much alive 36-year-old Clottey. Mundine recently beat 42-year-old Shane Mosley, and it looked like he was taking the back door method to a title shot by facing older or lesser fighters to get a title shot instead of dangerous top contenders. It might have been better for Mundine to have found another older guy to fight because Clottey had way too much for him tonight, and it was like watching a pro beat up on an amateur. Mundine had no chance at all against Clottey, who treated him with no respect in walking right up to him and nailing him with huge shots.
Mundine had been talking a lot about wanting to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. It was seen by a lot of boxing fans as a dream that would never happen due to Mundine being an unknown in the United States. Well, you can now say for certainty that there’s no way that Mundine will ever get a fight against Mayweather.
Mundine was ranked #3 by the WBA going into this fight, and he had a good chance of getting a title shot against the WBA 154lb champion in the near future. That obviously isn’t going to happen now, and you wonder if it might be better off for Mundine to hang up his gloves and simply retire because it’s going to take him ages to work his way back to the top of the junior middleweight rankings at this point.
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