Manny Siaca is the boxer Anthony Mundine surrendered his WBA Super Middleweight title to without much of an effort in May 2004. Against his manager’s and father’s wishes Mundine demanded the opportunity for a rematch to gain redemption and he was given what he wanted. A brave move I thought, as Mundine would be risking a guaranteed shot at current WBA Super Middleweight champ Mikkel Kessler if he lost a second time to Siaca.

I thought Mundine may have timed this bout very well as Siaca was beaten into submission in Denmark by Mikkel Kessler and may well be suffering ill effects from that beating. Mundine Sr. thought that Siaca would have been the wrong style of opponent for Mundine to prepare for Kessler, a fair point. I was impressed by the fact that Anthony Mundine was seeking out a legitimate contender to fight, as apposed to a sacrificial lamb like his last two opponents.

It is unfortunate that Manny Siaca was withdrawn from the February 2 bout, and  the Mundine camp has refused to postpone the bout by six weeks as the Siaca camp had requested. I guess that would have been too expensive and more importantly it was going to effect Mundine’s timing for a rematch with Mikkel Kessler. Now Team Mundine is searching for an opponent to fill Siaca’s place;  I’m confident they wouldn’t be calling Sam Soliman as he gave Mundine quite a scare a few years ago and has significantly improved his game since then. I was pretty sure we would end up seeing Mundine facing another mobile punching bag, but one certainly cannot be too critical concerning the quality of the new opponent Team Mundine was able to secure in such a short period of time. I thought about not canceling the PPV coverage I purchased considering Team Mundine did make a genuine attempt to have a competitive bout for “The Man” this time around. When I heard that the best opponent they could dig up was Daniel Castillo, who apparently has not won a bout in three years I thought it would be better to save my money and once again watch the highlights on the news.

I’ll give team Mundine credit as they tried to get South African Andre Thysse (a quality opponent who gave decent fights to current world champions Marcus Beyer & Mikkel Kessler recently) as a replacement but he was unwilling to fight on such notice. Syd Vanderpool said on another boxing website he would have been happy to step in but said he was not approached. Vanderpool is the self proclaimed “Best Super Middleweight in the world”. Very amusing, I think he is probably one of the top 15 Super Middleweights, but who is he kidding with this kind of statement!

Team Mundine has other concerns as Mikkel Kessler is due to make a voluntary defence soon but  an opponent or venue has not been announced to date.  Rumors have been floating around that a unification bout against Joe Calzaghe may happen, although this seems unlikely to me as both men’s promoters don’t like fighting in someone else’s backyard.

Should things get too difficult for Mundine to secure his mandatory shot at the WBA Super Middleweight title, all would not be lost, as Danny Green is due to face WBC Super Middleweight title holder Marcus Beyer. Based on what happened in their original bout and Beyer’s recent form, one would feel Green has a very good chance of bringing the WBC title back to Australia.