Jeff Horn vs Anthony Mundine

Horn is 30 years old with a record of 18-1 with 12 KO’s.  In his last fight, he was KO’d himself by pound for pound champ Terence Bud Crawford.  Horn is fit, aggressive and sets an extraordinary pace.  His defense is good as he has good head movement and darts in and out.  He is susceptible to cuts as he likes to brawl and often rushes in head first which can cause clashes of heads.  He’s reckless at times and can be caught with counter punching. He throws “punches in bunches”  and wins rounds with activity. 

Mundine is 43 and in the twilight of a sports career that started as a professional rugby player.  Frankly, as a fighter, Mundine is an enigma as he looked great in a few fights, good in others but awful in some. His competition is almost exclusively Australian based fighters.  His best win was against Daniel Geale in 2009 and once beat a faded Shane Mosley when he was about ten years past his prime. The 2006 version of Mundine was sleek and threw rapid combination of punches as he darted in and out kind of reminding me of a poor man’s Roy Jones Jr.  Today he’s sports a “straight rangefinder jab” and throws one maybe two punches at a time.  He stands straight-up with his hands held high with no foot movement.  He still has very quick hands but at times holds his left very low.  He does have a good upper cut with a sneaky quick right hand.  He has a questionable chin and can be roughed up. 

Prediction:

Mundine is the bigger man in this fight which has been made at a catch weight of 156.  Mundine has fought as high as 175 and Horn is a smallish welterweight.  Horn is aggressive and will look to rough up Mundine.  Mundine will try and control the action from the outside and outjab Horn.  I think Mundine will have success early in the fight and use his quick hands to outmaneuver the on rushing Horn and even be ahead after the first four rounds.  At that point, Horn’s aggressiveness wears Mundine down and Horn drops and stops Mundine inside the distance.