Charles Hatley tolls bell on Anthony Mundine’s world title ambitions

 
IT was poetic that a fighter dubbed ‘The Future’ put an emphatic halt on Anthony Mundine’s world title ambitions.

 
Little known Texan Charles Hatley rolled into the Melbourne Convention Centre on a hoverboard segway and left with Anthony Mundine’s WBC Silver light middleweight strap firmly affixed to his waist.

 
Hatley, 29, dished out a rhythmic beating to a broken-down and beat-up Mundine, 40, who showed tremendous fighting heart for the entirety of ten-and-a-half rounds. He tried his best, but it wasn’t there.

 
“I made the fight real easy, you saw it,” uttered Hatley in his post-fight interview with Aus-Boxing.

 
“Man, they called my slip a knockdown – I didn’t go down – I got straight back up,”

 
“It really was a slip but hey, I just take it how it comes,”

 
The fight’s ending appeared to be a near certainty in the second round when Hatley (now 26-1-1, 18 KOs) pummelled a lethargic looking Mundine (now 47-7, 27 KOs), scoring three solid knockdowns.

 
A disorientated Bruce McTavish – who refereed the main event – almost called a halt on a handful of occasions, but Mundine did well to fight his way out of trouble.

 
Speaking from his dressing room alongside his entourage of an estimated twenty people, Hatley was full of respect and praise for his fallen foe. But with that said, Hatley thought the finish was going to come earlier.

 
“I worked real hard for this – and I won the fight – I knew I had the fight won when I went in.”

 
“After round two, when I kept putting him down, I thought the referee was going to stop it.”

 
“We took him to the eleventh round and I stopped him,” Hatley exclaimed. “I said I would and that’s what I did,”

 
“Anthony Mundine is a great fighter. It would be hard for a lot of others to probably beat him but I worked hard for this fight man. That’s why we took it, that’s why we came.”

 
And while his post-fight callouts for Gennady Golovkin were slightly humorous if not outright comical, Hatley admits that he has no set fixture at this point in time.

 
“I’ll go home now and whatever my father says next is what I’m going to do,”

 
“I love Australia. Maybe I’ll come back and fight my next fight here if they can get the right fighter and money,”

 
“I’d love to be back in Australia in a couple more months. But whatever my father says is next, that’s what’s happening,”

 
 
Photo: Michael Dodge/Getty Images Asia Pacific