World champion boxer Danny Green - getting ready for the 2009 Sydney to Hobart yacht race
It took Danny Green just two days – and a pile of changed nappies and school runs with his kids Archie and Chloe – to come back to earth from his brilliant 2-minute fight with American Roy Jones Junior.
Green told me earlier today that he couldn’t wait to get home to Perth after spending nearly two months in Sydney in training for the fight on December 2.
The world champ shocked the boxing world when he unexpectedly KO’d the 40-year-old Jones in two minutes to successfully defend his International Boxing Organisation cruiserweight crown. No one – except Green himself – had given him a chance against the multi-world prizefighter.
“It was very satisfying after 20 years of boxing,” he said with typical understatement. “Jones worried me. He is one of the greatest fighters of all time and he is going to go down in the record books as an all-time great. As a fighter, he is electric and so exciting.
“No one really gave me a shake, and understandably – he is Roy Jones.”
Green explained his strategy to 650 people today at a charity fund-raiser for the Loyal Foundation, which is entering a celebrity crew (including Green) in the 2009 Rolex Sydney-Hobart yacht race.
Danny Green at the Loyal charity fund-raiser
His tactic was to run in early and land a punch anywhere he could, just to “let him know you are in for a long night, fella”.
As history knows, it worked and Green landed a ripper and Jones’s long night lasted just two minutes and two seconds.
“I thought wow, he is in trouble and the punch made a helluva smack.”
I met Green, his adored wife, Nina, and kids Chloe and Archie early last year when I was writing a cover story for sunday magazine around the time he retired for the first time. Today he told me there was no way that retirement was on the cards – at least not any time soon.
“No, I’m having too much fun, I love boxing,” he said. He returned to the ring for the simple reason that he missed the sport.
Meanwhile, the 36-year-old is gearing up for the Sydney-Hobart. “To be honest, I am looking forward to it but I am shitting myself.”
The boxer with a massive heart joins Olympian Grant Hackett, Wallaby great Phil Kearns, rugby star Phil Waugh and television host Larry Emdur on the super maxi Loyal, which will be skippered by Sean Langman, an experienced yachtie who was born on a boat in Rushcutters Bay and has been sailing since the day he first drew breath. . They hope to raise $1 million for various charities around the country and they aim to win line honours in one of the most thrilling and dangerous ocean yacht races around the world.
The super maxi was left lying in a paddock in Auckland until four months ago when Langman, who had raced in 18 Sydney to Hobarts, and a mate got their hands on it. They have lengthened it and gave it a new keel and new sails. “There’s lot of challenges in front of us and I give it [the yacht] at good chance,” he said.
Green said he had enormous respect for the professional yachtsmen and women who he reckons have way more courage than any boxer or rugby player.
“They are going out into the unknown and you are at the mercy of the climate – that’s just ridiculous,” he said. And of skipper Langman Green joked: “He’s got a pair of figs on him like cantaloupes.”
Phil Kearns has nominated the Humpty Dumpty Foundation as his preferred charity to benefit from funds raised.
If you want to donate to any of the sailors’ chosen charities, go here.
