by H. G. Nelson
Like most boxers, Bugner did not like smelling the glove, let alone tasting it.
His big break was in March 1971. The bout that established Joe as ‘the next big thing’ was the fight against the champ, Henry Cooper. This was a highly anticipated bout between age and youth. It was a contest as old as the fight game itself. The ding-dong was postponed for a year until Joe turned twenty-one. By then two belts were on the line, the British Commonwealth and European heavyweight titles.
Henry wielded a big punch, known as ‘Henry’s Hammer’, but Joe triumphed. The Tornado won by one quarter of a point over fifteen rounds. Joe found a way to score with a left jab, keeping his opponent at bay. Henry took the fight up to Joe but could not land the lights-out blow with the ball pein in his fist.
The incredible closeness of the margin got fight fans talking. A quarter-point victory is something to hang a pair of big shorts on. On the night there was just one official scoring, the charismatic Harry Gibbs. No one could count like ‘Left Hook’ Harry. He often scored a fight based on the audience reaction to every punch.
Harry described the never-repeated decision to Eddie ‘Slow’ Charlton, fight correspondent for the Sunday Times, who asked the ref, ‘Hookie, was it your best?’:
Yeah, no. Slow, that was my best! I will never be that accurate again. I was always good at counting at school, but that score-line was special. Sure, Joe did bugger-all, but the sweet sound of leather does not lie. You hear every whack to bonce and body in the ring. As you know, a judge always feels a fight. Often, I get home more bruised than the brawlers.
But a quarter of a point – it’s a helluva a margin. I am not sure how I did it. And I have replayed every punch over and over in my mind.
The fight made Joe, but it made me as well. Everyone knew I could score after that twelve rounder. People in the street stopped me, shook my hand and mumbled, ‘Harry, love your work, when is your next fight?’ I never looked back!
It was a controversial decision. People still argue about it. Even fight fans who had no interest in the bout nor seen the replay have an opinion. Joe could not keep the momentum going, he lost both titles in his next bout against Jack Bodell. Atomic Joe put this down to inexperience and the unkind suggestion in certain sections of the media that the win over Cooper’s hammer was a Gibbs-inspired fluke.
But ‘The Tooting Tornado’ was on his way. The big heavyweight names of the era, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, were lurking. Everyone wanted to know him. The Bugner dance card was suddenly chock-a-block.
Joe took on Muhammed Ali and did enough to earn the respect of both the picky public and the hard-to-please big-headed boxing media. Many knowledgeable fight fans judged his next rumble with Joe Frazier, in July 1973, as the best of his career. Bugner was flattened by a stunning left hook in the eleventh by the other Joe in the ring. But The Tottenham Tornado got back on his feet and finished the round. At the death, Bugner had done a bit, but not enough and dipped out by a couple of punches in a points decision.
After these two heavyweight losses, The Twickenham Tornado won eight in a row and challenged Ali to another tango. This time it was a world title affair. In June 1975 Bugner and Ali fought in Kuala Lumpur’s heat and humidity. Ali easily won a lopsided rumpus. Bugner kept his strictly defensive posture going throughout the fight in the blistering tropical heat of the outdoor venue.
Late in the first act of his long career he lost interest and walked away from the game he loved. But a mere ten days later he knew it was a big mistake and announced his first major comeback. Through the next two decades, like a sporting addict, Joe had trouble staying away from the thrill of the fight and just one more night centre stage in the shorts under the bright lights. He knew that a lucky punch at the right time could give him another shot at the world heavyweight title. He knew boxing was a game of millimetres and ticks on the clock.
Through the next two decades, like a sporting addict, Joe had trouble staying away from the thrill of the fight and just one more night centre stage in the shorts under the bright lights.
He was in this very challenging retiring and comeback phase of his career when he moved to Australia in 1986. He was a genuine government pin-up boy for the great Australian multicultural programme. He loved Australia. His name and record still opened doors. He still saw a ring and wanted a fight. This time he slipped through the ropes as ‘Aussie’ Joe Bugner. The new handle let all fight fans know where he stood on the migration issue and who he now supported. He wanted to give something back to the nation that welcomed him with open arms. His rebadging talked to fans who might have thought he was just another freeloading blow-in. Not sure if there were other Joe Bugners knocking about the circuit elsewhere, but this Joe had the big point of difference: he was the only Aussie Joe.
He appeared ringside in a green and gold dressing gown. These are not easy colours for a designer to work with, but the ensemble was tarted up with a cascade of wattle draped across the shoulders and a sprig or two of real wattle tacked to the breast pocket.
He fought on through a forgotten litany of great and lesser names until a big night in October 1987 when he returned to London and fought Frank Bruno at White Hart Lane. Now thirty-seven years old, Joe entered the ring as ‘the most unpopular man in British sport’.
Frank was a complex opponent. To get a feel for the canvas and stay sharp, Frank Bruno erected a boxing ring in his backyard. As the bout approached, Frank did not want ring rust to creep into his game, so the champ began sleeping in the ring outside under the stars for days before the bout. When Frank’s ring days were over, he retrained and had a successful career as a panto dame. His Widow Twankey in Aladdin brought all the skills from the squared circle to the ‘Oh, yes it is!’ stage at Christmas.
Joe lost to Widow-T-to-be. This night of nights for glove freaks was followed by another pause for Joe along the winding road before inevitably another comeback turned up when he swerved around the next bend.
But even after the White Hart Lane debacle he could not stay away, and he fought on during the 1990s. By now the world had lost interest in his limited ring style. It was a masterstroke of movement that he only progressed forwards and backwards in straight lines as though his feet were strapped to a skateboard. Many opponents worked out a fight strategy as they had a fair idea of where Joe would be headed next at any point in the bout and aimed the punches at the spot he was travelling to, not where he was.
He pushed on until his brain finally got the message through to his body that enough was enough. He was gone for good in 1999, just as a new century dawned, at the very young age of forty-eight. Many wished the OAP of the ring had pushed on into the twenty-first century.
Did Australia see the best of Joe? That is a hard question. Joe understood that boxing was about 79.9 per cent show business and 15 per cent brawn and bashing, which left 5.1 per cent of the brain still working. Australia got to see a man in his prime with something to say. His only failing was he could not let a stink go by without wanting to lace on a glove and be part of it. He went everywhere prepared. He travelled with the shorts and gloves in the boot of the car with the hands taped, ready to stride into the bright lights and take a pummelling from an opponent and a torrent of abuse and shouts of derision from his fans.
His only failing was he could not let a stink go by without wanting to lace on a glove and be part of it.
Joe, like many great sporting identities, could do the lot. Through the marketing power of the name Bugner he suddenly had a blossoming career as a winemaker. Joe and partner Marlene began working grapes in the Cessnock area, knocking up Marlene Hermitage and Joseph Chardonnay. These were two great attacking wines that could go the distance. Joe’s wines were marketed under the St Merovingian brand. St Merovingian is the patron saint of boxers-turned-winemakers, among other things.
Joe was very hands-on, involved in every facet of the process. He pruned the vines, drove the tractor, had magic hands with the secateurs, picked the grapes, trod the vat
, rammed the corks in and was the brains in the marketing department.
The range, sadly, did not find a foothold in the tricky Australian wine market. The operation stumbled, losing a vat full of loot in the process. But he tipped that bottling know-how into his next venture, producing a range of mineral waters marketed with the phrase ‘Once sipped never forgotten’ on every bottle.
But Joe had always been keen to expand into other areas. He knew an act was needed to promote fights and so with his ring craft it was a short skip to starring in internationally produced feature films. His career took off to great acclaim with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill’s Italian classic Io Sto Con Gli Ippopotami (I’m for the Hippopotamus), in which he played the challenging role of Ormond.
Joe worked with the Bud and Terence team during the 1980s. They showed their young fighting apprentice the cinema ropes. There was a lot to learn, how to hit a mark, where to stand, how not to look at the camera, how to be tough (that was easy for Joe) and that great skill of how to deliver a line while robbing it of all meaning.
Joe cashed the cheque he wrote as Ormond when he packed down in Buddy Goes West as the evil Sheriff Bronson. These early films were from the boutique funny Spaghetti Western school of film-making. As he gained confidence and found a fan base, Joe attempted more serious works, tackling Sher Mountain Killings Mystery, in which he played the career-defining role as the Ranger. Street Fighter saw him playing the heavy again as Bison’s Torturer, and he brought it all home when he appeared as Claw Miller in Fatal Bond, an Australian erotic thriller. Excited film-goers were so moved by his performance that on occasions they began hurling their underwear at the screen. This was a great vehicle, but unless anyone was looking in the wrong place no one seems to have watched it. His career on the big screen had a final act when he played Fingers McGee in the award-winning Bad Behaviour in 2010.
After thrilling several generations on the big screen and in the big ring, Joe got another lucky break behind the information desk at Boondall Tools on the Gold Coast. He was a sensation advising hardware types where the four-inch roofing nails, the cross-cut saw and the bags of cement were located in the vast store.
Bugner’s career needs its own book. In fact, it has one: Joe Bugner, My Story, told over twelve rounds. He was built to be a stayer and that was the street where he plied his trade. He ended a long and varied career simply telling people where to go. It was a great success.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM
Scott ‘It’s Not a Race’ Morrison is the first cab off the rank.
THE THIRTIETH PRIME MINISTER of Australia, Scott ‘I Don’t Hold the Hose’ Morrison, is no stranger to the Canberra cultural bubble of sport and its intense political ramifications.
Rugby league is his go-to sport for entertainment and relaxation. As soon as he was tapped for the top job in Canberra, the Sutherland Shire product, out of the Bronte hub, was out on the school oval demonstrating his rugby league credentials. He has a genuine knack for the six-tackle caper that made him a tight fit for The Lodge.
There he was, having staggered back from the Governor-General’s big house at Yarralumla, with the commission to run the joint still wet in his pocket, straight into the shorts and boots, running the ball up, laying on a fend, pumping a dummy, before stepping to the left and going over to score against a plucky Under 13 side from Kirrawee Primary School, school motto ‘Our Best Always’.
The Kirrawee Destroyers were no easy beats. They made it tricky for ‘Smoko’ and in doing so made the new PM look good. Cameras from all free-to-air channels and major news outlets were on hand to record the The Hose’s footwork and his incredible ball security.
Knowledgeable observers at Channel Nine and Fox Footy thought ‘Bus Tickets’ had the skills to go all the way in the greatest game of all. The burning issue along the east coast of the nation, as ‘JobKeeper’ Joe made his run for the top job was: is this bloke rugby league literate? That stiff stumper was answered convincingly in a lively twenty minutes of power and passion against the stars of tomorrow.
Desperate Australians relaxed, secure in the knowledge that, at last, rugby league would be represented at the highest level in the nation’s affairs. A collective sigh of relief was expelled by a grateful nation, knowing that the new man in The Lodge had a firm grasp of the fundamentals.
A collective sigh of relief was expelled by a grateful nation, knowing that the new man in The Lodge had a firm grasp of the fundamentals.
He could do the lot. The gouge, the crusher, the don’t argue, the hip drop, the tick tock, finding a gap, bursting through, breaking the line before getting the ball down over the line under the black dot – ‘The Jab of Hope’ man had it all. That effort he put in against the kids confirmed to the knockers, and there were many, that ‘Vaccines’ was ready for the top job.
It was an impressive hit-out against the kids from Kirrawee. The Australian coach, Mal Meninga, knew he could run ‘Captain Smoke’ off the bench for fifteen minutes of game time if the Kangaroos needed an injection of pace in the back row against the PNG Kumuls. If a tricky Test match was hanging in the balance, ‘Sooty’ was genuine dry powder.
Not long after snaring the keys to The Lodge in a tight three-way tussle with ‘Spud’ Dutton and ‘Blinga’ Bishop, ‘Super Soot’ got a chance to sample the cut and thrust of international rugby league when he ran the water for the green and gold in a Kangaroos v Fiji clash that coincided with a high-powered South Pacific summit on climate change.
What a week for the recently installed PM! He climaxed seven days of selling the dump to the Pacific Islands on rising sea levels and offering the low-lying atoll and island nations more frequent hurricanes and warmer seas by getting the water job in the first Test.
But the sporting prowess of the ‘Six Again Hombre’ did not stop with rugby league. He cashed the cheque he wrote with league when he reached for the tennis racquet and new balls.
He made a young number one representative from the Shire’s tennis club look a complete idiot when he took him on over three hard-fought points at the Ken Rosewall Tennis Centre in Mortdale. The kid was never the same afterwards, especially when ‘The Trumpette’ sent him packing with a Bernard Tomic X-rated spray.
Scott ‘Handshakes’ Morrison was always up for a kick of footy, a hit of tennis or a swim in a clapped-out pool during a meet-and-greet listening tour around the nation. In campaign mode, he recorded his great swims in the pools of Australia on social media, encouraging voters who dialled up his deep end posts to take the plunge and do a few lengths.
Discussing ‘Announcements’ Morrison’s hands-on style, many tertiary-educated observers have made the obvious observation that the ‘Where the Bloody Hell Are You?’ bloke is our first PM to be totally inspired by television, advertising in particular.
Scott ‘Handshakes’ Morrison was always up for a kick of footy, a hit of tennis or a swim in a clapped-out pool during a meet-and-greet listening tour around the nation.
With his background in marketing, it was only natural that he modelled his approach to the top job on the can-do style, no-job-is-too-big, local stars of television.
Australia’s reality TV is the best in the world. Shows like MasterChef, The Bachelor and Australia’s Got Talent are the envy of the reality TV industry. They are must-see appointment viewing at the Morrison-supervised screen-time when the team are at home in The Lodge.
The family gathers on the lounge before the credits. Phones are put away. There were cheers for MasterChef stars like Reynold, Poh and Callum when they wore the apron. There were louder cheers when the contestants plated up and nervously strolled up to the top table trio with their free-range vegan lamb chops, in a hummus and prune jus and deconstructed passionfruit pavlova, all Eton-messed on the same plate. Magic!
This nation is so blessed to have a talented bench of dolled-up wise heads who can adjudicate the passion on the plate while the nervy chefs step back, awaiting that sobering, career-defining decision.
T
he Morrison clan loved everything that Pete, Manu, Jock, Melissa and the man with the fork in hand and the cravat at the neck, Mattie Preston, have had to say in their meticulous judgements. Like all Australians, the Morrison clan were a family of fanatics lapping up the cut and thrust of cutlery in competition.
‘Bonk Ban’ Scott’s real hero from this potpourri of Australian reality television culture was another Scott; can the man from The Block, Scott Cam, take a step forward? So taken was Handshakes by The Block superstar in action with the spirit level that Canberra Scott opened the taxpayers’ Prada handbag, plucked several thousand very large and hurled the folding into the back of Block Scottie’s idling Toyota V8 Landcruiser. The lolly lobbed in the boot alongside a bag of Portland cement and a Paslode cordless nail gun from Total Tools in Taren Point.
In return, ‘Shocked and Appalled’ Morrison tasked Scott Cam to encourage all school leavers to become tradies. This was not a big ask. ‘Toolie’ Scott was to tour music festivals, craft beer shows and school formals with a powerful message about how much fun and what a great earn slogging away with a hammer, chisel and a cross-cut saw can be. The ambitious plan was to have 94.9 per cent of all school leavers enrolled in a trade by 2027. A move that would create 65,440 jobs.
Inspired by the YouTube vision of Cam’s end-of-year sprays at school breakups, lecture notes from Scott’s series ‘Wood: What is it Good For?’ and the stunning drama of the dovetail joint, PM Scott decided to strap on the tool bag and give it a go at home.
In 2020, the PM had time on his hands as COVID-19 travel protocols prevented him from fleeing back to holiday hotspots that featured sun, surf, deck chairs and burgers. Hawaii’s loss was Kirribilli’s gain as Scott has overseen substantial renovations around the harbourside Lodge since the moving vans dropped off their load.