Anthony Mundine retires after loss to Jeff Horn

It’s probably no surprise to anyone who watched — or anyone who has followed his career the last few years — but it looks like today’s first round TKO loss to Jeff Horn was the end for Anthony Mundine.

Asked if this was to be his final fight, Mundine (48-9, 28 KO) said, “It is it, man. Jeff was too strong. He just caught me with that good shot. It was meant to be, bro.

“I want to take my hat off to Jeff. All the smack talk, all the shit I talked, I built the fight, you know what I mean? It’s the entertainment business. But I’m alright. I’m all good.”

Mundine added, “I just want to be remembered as somebody that’s real, somebody that speaks the truth,” and gave his thanks to fans who have supported him over the years.

“Whether you like me or don’t like me, you were interested. My time’s up.”

The 43-year-old Mundine has lost four of his last six fights, and in most of them hasn’t really been competitive. Even of his two wins, one of them was a highly controversial decision.

But the former rugby league player has had a pretty impressive boxing career, overall. He turned pro in 2000 at age 25, and over time became a legitimate super middleweight contender.

In Dec. 2001, he fought for a world title for the first time, losing by 10th round knockout to Sven Ottke. But he kept on going and competing, improving all the time, and won the WBA “world” super middleweight title in 2003, beating Antwun Echols.

Though he never really broke out as a star anywhere else, he competed in some of the biggest fights in Australian boxing in recent years, including showdowns with Sam Soliman, Daniel Geale, and perhaps most famously, a pair of fights with Danny Green in 2006 and 2017.

We’ll see if this retirement sticks — it’s boxing, so even at age 43 you never really know for sure — but it is definitely time, if not past time, for “The Man” to hang up the gloves. In the end, he’d go out having had one more big fight at home, perhaps fully passing the torch to the man who will be carrying Aussie boxing for the coming years.