WBA Super Middleweight Champion Anthony Mundine has confirmed that his world title defense against Puerto Rican powerhouse Manny Siaca will proceed as planned on May 8 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre despite the Australian suffering an ankle injury on Monday.
Speaking exclusively to Doghouse Boxing via his cell phone on Wednesday night, 28 year-old Mundine sounded relaxed and confident that the injury wouldn't prevent him from climbing through the ropes on May 8.
"It's coming along pretty good," he said. "I'm doing everything that I can to get it ready and hopefully in the next 24-48 hours, I can make a decision [whether to postpone the fight or not]."
Appearing on Channel 9's 'The Footy Show' on Thursday night, Mundine announced to a nationwide audience: “The fight will definitely go ahead.”
Mundine's detractors are expected to have a field day with the recent sequence of events.
After rolling his right ankle while sparring on Monday, it was reported that Mundine had suffered a grade two or three lateral ligament sprain of his ankle and the prospect of the fight going ahead looked bleak. On Wednesday The Daily Telegraph reported that Mundine's physician Martin Raftery said that this type of injury would normally prevent someone from playing a pivoting sport for four to six weeks. Yet by Thursday Mundine had staged a miraculous recovery that allowed him to complete a forty minute run that morning.
Prior to the injury Mundine, 20-1 (15 KO’s), had enjoyed a faultless preparation for his second title defense. With quality sparring provided by the likes of Sam Soliman, Nader Hamden and Peter Mitrevski, JR., Mundine was confident that he would be firing on all cylinders come fight night.
"I've been sparring with the boys and they have been giving me great work," Mundine said. "They really make you work for everything and that's why I really feel that my fitness levels are so high and I'm ready to go twelve rounds.”
"I've done all the hard work. I'm ready physically and mentally. And this is just a little bit of adversity I've had to face but you know, I've faced worse things than this. Against [Antwun] Echols I had a broken rib and I overcame it. I really feel that if I can get the full movement for what I want to do in the ring, there'll be no problem."
While Mundine's stamina has been questioned in the past, the Sydneysider insists this won't be an issue on Wednesday night.
"I probably trained harder for Echols for a longer period of time, but what I've done this fight is I've peaked at the right time, not too early and [I haven't trained] too hard for too long. My body's feeling good," said Mundine.
Siaca, 17-4 (16 KO’s), is undoubtedly the toughest test of Mundine’s career. With all, but one of Siaca's knockouts coming in the first four rounds, Mundine expects from the anvil-fisted 28 year-old to come at him with all guns blazing from the opening bell.
"I really feel that he'll try to come out hard and bomb away early and use his strength early. Obviously I don’t want to be there to for him to hit... I'm not going to predict any knockout or anything, all I'm going to predict is a victory and that I'll be successful," said Mundine.
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© Copyrights / All Rights reserved: Doghouse Boxing 1998-2004
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By Anthony Cocks (April 3, 2004) 
