On top from Down Under
Aussies featured in “Undisputed: A Golden Era in Australian Boxing”

Undisputed: A Golden Era of Australian Boxing
By Paul Upham
317 pages.
$34.89. ABC Books.
Release date November 2010.
Link

Book review by Chris Cozzone

Go figure. Paul Upham comes out with a book celebrating great champions from Down Under, and nearly everyone featured fails to come out on top in recent bouts.

Michael Katsidis gets walloped by Juan Manuel Marquez on Nov. 27. On the same night, Sakio Bika loses to Andre Ward. A week or so later, Anthony Mundine gets pasted by little-known Garth Wood in what is being called one of the biggest Australian upsets ever. To top it all off, Vic Darchinyan finishes the streak of bad luck by losing to Abner Mares, last weekend.

On the other hand, it looks like Kostya Tszyu has made it into the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2011.

That – and not recent boxing results – is really what Undisputed is about: the rich legacy of Aussie boxing.

Though the book focuses on the stars of the last decade, a “golden era” for Australia being the main theme, writer Upham first takes us back to the forgotten days, long before the Tszyus and Greens and Darchinyans walked the earth.

Australia has produced some of boxing’s greatest, including Young Griffo, one of the greatest featherweights of all time, and Les Darcy, who died at the age of 21, long before reaching his full potential. It was also on Aussie turf – not U.S. – that Jack Johnson was allowed to fight for the world heavyweight championship. In front of 20,000, Johnson beat up Tommy Burns.

Aussie greatness, however, ebb and flowed through the decades – that is, until 2000, when, out of the Sydney Olympic Games, arose a new crew of talent. With Tszyu eventually becoming undisputed champion at 140, and Darchinyan near-undisputed at 115, champions racking up belts from Down Under include Katsidis, Bika, Mundine, Green, Lovemore N’dou and several others.

While Upham’s argument of a golden age for Australia cannot be disputed, what can be argued against is the lengthy laundry list of world champions any one decade or any one country can produce. Given the hundreds of titles available these days from the vending machine companies calling themselves sanctioning bodies, it wouldn’t be hard for any region or country to make an argument that the last decade has produced a so-called “golden age.”

On the other hand, there’s no reason why one has to buy into the belt business in order to enjoy Upham’s latest book.

If you’re an Aussie boxing fan, this book is a must-have. If you were part of the Tszyu crew in the ‘00s (I, for one, will never forget Tszyu’s coming out party – one of the greatest kayos of the decade he scored over then-champ Zab Judah) or still believe in Darchinyan, this book is for you.