Anthony Mundine Jr. (born 21 May 1975) is an Australian former professional boxer and rugby league footballer. In boxing he competed from 2000 to 2021, and held the WBA super-middleweight title twice between 2003 and 2008. He also held the IBO middleweight title from 2009 to 2010, and the WBA interim super-welterweight title from 2011 to 2012. Mundine is well known for his heated rivalries with fellow Australians Danny Green and Daniel Geale.
Before his move to boxing, Mundine was the highest-paid player in the National Rugby League (NRL). He considers himself to be Australia's best all-round athlete.
Mundine was named the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Person of the Year in 2000. He is the first boxer in history to have had every one of his professional fights broadcast for television and has generated more pay-per-views than any other Australian boxer since he turned professional. Steve Bunce has described him as "arguably the greatest crossover athlete in boxing history". Mundine has had a stormy relationship with the media: his conversion to Islam in 1999, self-promotion and outspoken opinions have created a love–hate relationship with the Australian public. Mundine has been described as "the most polarising athlete in Australian sports history".
Early life and education
He is the son of former professional boxer Tony Mundine and hails from the Bundjalung people of northern coastal areas of New South Wales. Mundine was born in Newtown, in the inner west of Sydney in 1975. Both of his parents are Aboriginal. Mundine was raised as a Christian but converted to Islam in the late 1990s.
Mundine played junior rugby league for Hurstville United and, while attending Kingsgrove High School, Mundine starred for the school in the 1993 and 1994 teams which won the University Shield both of those years. He also played for the Australian Schoolboys team in 1993. That year, Mundine signed with the St. George Dragons as an eighteen-year-old. Mundine also attended Canterbury Boys' High School and Cleveland Street High School.
Rugby league
In 1994, Mundine represented the Junior Kangaroos, the team that beat Great Britain's under-19s in the curtain-raiser to the Australia v. France Test at Parramatta Stadium.
In 1996, he played in a losing grand final, against the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles. That year, he was the victim of racial vilification when Rugby League player Barry Ward called Mundine a "black c- - - -". Ward was fined $10,000 for the offence. At the end of that season Mundine announced that he was signing with the Brisbane Broncos in the Super League competition.
In 1997 he played 18 games for the Brisbane club, scoring three tries. He also played at centre in his second consecutive grand final, this time a victory against the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in Brisbane.
In 1998 he returned to St. George.
Mundine was selected to play for New South Wales in each of the three matches of the 1999 State of Origin series, scoring a try in Game I on debut.
That year he also assisted St. George Illawarra's run to the Grand Final, with a hat-trick against the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in the major semi-final. The following week the club lost to the Melbourne Storm in the 1999 NRL Grand Final during which and Mundine, playing at five-eighth knocked-on over the try line early in the second half when the score was 14-0 in favour of St. George Illawarra, which proved to be a major turning point in the match.
The following year, Mundine said before the club's grand final rematch with Melbourne that Melbourne were not worthy premiers. Melbourne would hand St. George Illawarra a 70-10 defeat at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Mundine was disappointed that further representative honours did not follow, and believed that his representative opportunities did not reflect his abilities and achievements at club level. He raised the issue of racism as the main explanation for this.
Mundine left rugby league halfway through the 2000 season, after being inspired to go into boxing, when a friend, Abdi Osman, showed him a video of Muhammad Ali. He later cited what he claimed was racism concerning rugby league as one of the reasons he quit to take up boxing. Mundine would later make implications during a promotion for a boxing match that former chairman of selectors and respected Aboriginal figure Arthur Beetson may have been an "Uncle Tom" who went along with the alleged racism.
In 2005 Mundine was reported to be making a comeback to the NRL, but this did not eventuate.
In 2007 Mundine was appointed Indigenous Liaison Officer at the South Sydney Rabbitohs.