In a huge upset, #14 WBA Joshua Clottey (38-4, 22 KO’s) defeated #3 WBA Anthony Mundine (46-6, 27 KO’s) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision on Wednesday night at the Entertainment Centre, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.
Clottey was supposed to be a safe fight for the 38-year-old Mundine to win in order to stay in line for a title shot against WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara. However, Clottey didn’t go along with the program, as he knocked the slow moving Mundine down 5 times in the fight with his still fast hooks to the head. Mundine was down once in rounds 3, twice in the 6th, once in the 8th, and a final time in the 10th. The final judger scores were 116-108, 115-109, and 117-108.
Mundine had been facing old timers to try and get himself a title shot, and it looks like it backfired on him with one of the older fighters still having too much left for him to beat. It’s unclear what Mundine can do at this point to get his much wanted shot at Mayweather, Lara and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Unless one them decide to just give him a fight, he’s probably going to have to work his way back up the ladder for another 1-2 years.
The best way for Mundine to work his way back is for him to take gambles by luring some of the top contenders like James Kirkland, Austin Trout, Vanes Martirosyan and Sergei Rabchenko over to Australia and try beat them. If Mundine can beat 3-4 of these guys in a short period of time, he’ll be right back where he started from and will be ranked in the top 5 again. However, if Mundine can’t even beat a fighter like Clottey, then it’s not likely he’s going to be able to beat enough of the top junior middleweight contenders to get back to the top.
