By Chris Williams: Anthony Mundine (47-8, 27 KOs) will be fighting Tommy Browne (35-6-2, 13 KOs) on Wednesday night on January 17, and if everything works out well this year, he’ll face WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn after that.
Mundine will be fighting the 34-year-old Browne for the vacant WBO Oriental middleweight title on Wednesday night at the Star City Hotel & Casino in Pyrmont, in Australia. A victory for Mundine will likely get him a top 15 ranking with the World Boxing Organization at 160. In theory, Mundine will be in position for a world title shot at the WBO 160 lb. champion.
Mundine, 42, wants to finish out his long 18-year pro career at the end of the year. He says if he can’t get a fight against Horn, he’s hoping to face WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez or Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin. Like always, Mundine is aiming high for the opponents he wants to face. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out well for the Australian with him being able to get the big names he wants to face.
Mundine has been interested in facing Canelo and Floyd Mayweather Jr. for years, and neither of those fights happened. It’s doubtful that Canelo and GGG are going to throw Mundine a bone now by giving him a fight in his last year of his career. Horn is an option for Mundine, but only after he loses his WBO 147 lb. title to Terence Crawford in April. If Mundine is still interested in facing Horn after he loses to Crawford, then that fight can definitely get made. It probably won’t generate a lot of pay-per-view buys in Australia though.
“To help boxing in this country and catapult it to the forefront, we’ve got to fight,” Mundine said to AAP about him facing Jeff Horn. “If he’s willing I’m able….if he wants it he can get it. But if he doesn’t then I just want to go out and try and fight the best, whether that’s Billy Joe, Alvarez or even Golovkin.”
Horn has already made it clear that he wants to fight Crawford next for the guaranteed payday that he’ll receive in that fight. Horn didn’t want to take a gamble of fighting the 42-year-old Mundine and then the fight possibly not happening due to an injury from the aging fighter. Horn has options even if gets beaten by Crawford. As long as Horn’s promoters at Top Rank are willing to match him with fighters outside of their stable, he’ll have some good options. If not, then Horn’s options will poor with him stuck fighting the likes of Kontantin Ponomarev and Crawford in endless rematches. That a horrible way for Horn to waste his career. He needs to be able to fight the popular fighters in the welterweight division before he outgrows the weight class.
Browne is a 16-year pro with defeats to Leonardo Zappavigna, William Kickett, Chris John, In-Jin Chin, Yasua Kunimi and Russell Seddon. Browne started his career out at featherweight, and he’s moved up steadily to get to middleweight. Browne hasn’t ever beaten anyone of note during his career. He’s mostly beaten journeyman level fighters.
Mundine is coming into Wednesday’s fight with Browne with 3 defeats in his last 4 fights. Mundine has lost his last 2 fights to Danny Green and Charles Hatley. In 2014, Mundine lost to Joshua Clottey. In 2013, he lost to Daniel Geale. Mundine likely would have beaten most of those guys if he was still in the prime of his career, but he’s far removed from that at this point.