Time for some Newman Nostalgia!
Who Am I?
Basically, I reckon I'm blessed, and I couldn’t be more satisfied...
I was born in Perth in 1973, youngest of four kids; two boys and two girls. My mum and dad, Maria and Mal, had a farm in Warralakin in the Wheatbelt, but after yet another bad season, they gave it up and came back to the city in around 1970. Here we lived in Sporing Way, in the new suburb of Hillarys.
My dad was an absolute legend! He was a country kid himself, born in Burracoppin, and he taught me the values he learnt growing up in the bush and fighting his way out of really tough times. He often went out of his way to help people, never judged anyone. He was firm, but very fair, and he raised me to never pick a fight or throw the first punch.
He coached with the Marist Junior Football Club (MJFC) for 50 odd years, coaching great Newman College AFL players like 'Spider' Burton (1987), Quenton Leach (1989), Matt Connell (1989) - how terrific to have him as your Head of Sport, by the way! And he also coached my older brother Brendan (1988), who was drafted by the West Coast Eagles in '93 and subsequently played for Claremont before he came to work with me.
Growing up, I loved surfing and ping-pong, and I played footy too, in the MJFC team. I am a huge Eagles supporter today, but I wanted to be a boxer, so my dad got me into martial arts when I was about 12. He said no matter how many times I got knocked down, I could always pick myself up and start again. How right he was.
I followed my older brother, Brendan, to Newman College where I was in Tangney Guild.
I left Newman in 1989 in Year 11 for a carpentry apprenticeship. I’m not a carpenter now, but I think it’s important to have a profession you can fall back on if you need to.
After that I focused hard on boxing. I didn’t go to parties, I trained hard and was totally focused.
In 1993, when I was 20, I competed in my first amateur match. Without being big-headed about it, I was really good! After that, slowly and steadily, I won title after title and, in 1998, I won a scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport. That same year I won a bronze medal at the Liverpool International Boxing Tournament, and was selected for the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. Unfortunately I broke my hand in the competition, so wasn’t able to win a medal. That was disappointing, but as my dad taught me, I got over it and moved forward and, in 2000, I was selected for the 2000 Summer Olympics!
I competed in the 81kg division in the Olympics and won my first bout, but broke my hand again in my second, against Alexander Lebziak. He was a Russian general in the military, nicknamed ’The Animal’, and he had a head inpervious to punishment! I took the loss on the chin, so to speak; I was really proud to have represented my country and I learnt a great deal from the experience.
Having broken a few records in my amateur career, I moved to Sydney and turned professional in 2001, training under three-time world champion Jeff Fenech. Over the next 17 years I fought 38 times, winning 33 and losing five. My first loss in my professional career was not until my 17th fight against Markus Beyer in Germany in 2003. I lost to him again in my 21st match in 2005.
...and then my third loss was to Anthony Mundine in my 24th fight in 2006 in Sydney. I’d had a bit of an ongoing feud with him for a few years, and our fight ended up being the most-watched pay TV event in Australian history. We went the full 12 rounds. It was a very difficult fight but the fact is he was the better fighter on the night.
In 2006, director Mick Angus produced ‘The Fight Game’, a documentary about the early part of my boxing career. He said, "He's no saint and [he] is the first to say that, but there is a degree of compassion that he wears on his sleeve.” I followed The Fight Game up with my biography ‘Closed Fists Open Heart’, published in 2008.
To everyone’s surprise I announced my retirement from boxing in March 2008, and appeared in Season 8 of Dancing with the Stars. My boxing meant I was very light on my feet, and my partner Natalie Lowe and I came second overall!
In April 2009 I came out of retirement. I had two losses in 2011, but won every other fight. The last fight was in Adelaide in February 2017, when I finally beat Anthony Mundine and retained the Australian cruiserweight title.
I am the only Australian to win the world championship four times, plus many other titles all over the world.
I’ve been happily married to my beautiful wife, Nina, since 2002, and we have two wonderful children, Chloe and Archie. I’m so proud of them! Perth being the best place in the world, we still live right here.
And I still love surfing! I was down at Yallingup one day in October 2006 - the waves were massive - when I saw someone in a bit of trouble. He was being dragged out to sea in a rip, and looked like he was going to drown. I grabbed him out and paddled him safely back to shore. When he recovered he couldn’t believe it was me who pulled him out - great pub story, he said! I was awarded a Commendation for Brave Conduct for that in 2010, but I was just happy to have been right there, right then, and been able to help.
In 2009 I was part of the team in the Sydney to Hobart, on supermaxi yacht Investec Loyal. Other teammates included Phil Waugh and Phil Kearns, who both played for the Wallabies, and Olympic swimmer Grant Hackett. I have to say, that first night was horrendous. At one point I nearly fell off and I thought for sure I was going to die. Give me a fight any day. I thought I was tough but those ocean racing sailors really are!
Early in 2013 I heard an 18-year-old kid, Daniel Christie, had been king hit in Sydney, on New Year’s Eve 2012. The punch knocked him out immediately, and he fell and cracked his head. His poor family had to turn his life support system off 11 days later.
Like my dad, I despise street violence, and I was disgusted by this, so I launched the 'Stop the Coward Punch’ campaign. With slogans like "Violence is ugly - and it makes you ugly too”, I’m really proud it's changed how coward punches are reported and perceived, and had an effect on lowering the number of attacks overall. People need to learn there’s a difference to being tough, and just being a thug. The campaign is still going and, in 2017, I was nominated as WA Australian of the Year for my anti-violence advocacy.
In early 2014 I launched an online health and fitness program to offer everyday people the chance to embrace a healthier lifestyle. I had the country’s top sports and exercise specialists, dietitians and nutritionists working on it. Later that year, with Tim West, I launched a new kind of boxing gym, called 12RND. It has, you guessed it, 12 stages/rounds, each of which takes just three minutes to complete. It means people aren’t bound to session times and can walk in and do their rounds when it suits them.
The idea spread all over the world, with 90 sites around Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, with an estimated 15,000 members. Just recently, the franchise united under one brand - UBX (You Box), which will roll out across the UK and Ireland, making it the largest provider of boxing for fitness in the world. I’m really proud of that!
I'm sure you guessed a little while back, but ...Who Am I?
Here I am with my cheeky grin in Year 11, 1989, with Mrs Richards and the other Tangney Guild Reps.
