Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers\u00a0are advised that this article contains the name of a person who has died.<\/p>\n
Australian boxer Tony Mundine has died aged 75.<\/p>\n
One of the country’s most accomplished Indigenous fighters, Mundine was the only Australian boxer to compete professionally in four weight divisions.<\/p>\n
He held the Australian titles at middleweight, light-heavyweight, cruiserweight and heavyweight.<\/p>\n
His death was confirmed by his son, former world champion boxer Anthony Mundine.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know what to say, I’m broken,” Anthony Mundine wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n
“Dad I love you man, may Allah bless your soul,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
“I’m on my way home to say goodbye one last time till we meet again.<\/p>\n
“Thanks for doing all you did for me and supporting me in every moment, showing love and strength, gonna miss you Tonza, there’s only one Tony Mundine.”<\/p>\n
Tony Mundine was born in Baryulgil , New South Wales, where he took part in a number of tent boxing shows as a teenager.<\/p>\n
His career peaked with a world title challenge in October 1974 against Argentina’s Carlos Monzon.<\/p>\n
Despite losing via a seventh-round knockout, Tony Mundine said he had fulfilled a childhood dream.<\/p>\n
“I was just a little chocolate boy from Baryulgil, and here I was travelling the world, you know,” he said.<\/p>\n
Tributes from the boxing world flowed in for Mundine after the news of his death.<\/p>\n
Former Australian professional boxer Danny Green paid tribute to Mundine, saying he was a “gentleman I had a tonne of respect for.”<\/p>\n
“Grew up watching him on TV ringsidem drew a great deal of inspiration from watching him, one of my late father’s favourite fighters,” Green wrote.<\/p>\n
Australian professional boxer Billy Dib said Mundine was “widely recognised as one of Australia’s greatest fighters”.<\/p>\n
“Uncle Tony was a beautiful human being and a genuinely good man who always showed me love and respect.”<\/p>\n
Mundine retired from professional boxing in 1984.<\/p>\n
He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1986 for his services to sport and Aboriginal youth.<\/p>\n
He is survived by his son Anthony, his grandson \u2014 professional boxer Rahim Mundine \u2014 and his cousin \u2014 businessman and Indigenous rights advocate Warren Mundine.<\/p>\n
ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers\u00a0are advised that this article contains the name of a person who has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43476,16485,802,43,44,443166,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-874161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-anthony-mundine","tag-boxer","tag-boxing","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-tony-mundine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}