Interview with Bob Mirovic
Recently I interviewed Three Time Australian Heavyweight Champion Big Bob Mirovic at his gym on the central coast of N.S.W. in my capacity as a writer for an online international boxing ****zine. Bob Mirovic is making a comeback at the very ripe age of 49, what possible reason could he have for wanting to comeback to the ring apart from his obvious love for the sport ?... simple, he wants to be the first ever man to win the Australian Heavyweight title for a fourth time, there have been quite a few who have won this great title 3 times and apart from them there have been some truly great fighters to have held this title, none other than Peter Jackson, Sam McVey, Sam Langford, Les Darcy, Ambrose Palmer and Dave Sands all being names most of you well know about.
ME; You were talking about the fight with Rob Calloway ?
Bob ; Paul Briggs who was one of the commentators that night told me, “that was one of the best fights I have ever seen, ever”, It was a massive war. Well before I fought Calloway, right, I was in America sparring for 6 weeks with Mike Tyson, ok, my condition was awesome you know. We were in Phoenix Arizona, It was like, 40 plus degrees every day, I got back here 12 days before the fight, in July in the middle of winter, 3 days out, I got a severe flu, I couldn’t even stand up, I was just, a mess. The first fight in the history of my boxing career I couldn’t get right for a fight. My mum was going through chemo with breast cancer, the day of the fight I called her and I said, “I am so sick, I don’t think I can fight”, “I can’t breathe right, I’m dizzy”, she said, “Son, just like I’m fighting for my life right now, you fight for your life too”, so I thought to myself, hang on, here’s my mum fighting for life and here I am with just the flu, you know ! so what have I got to complain about. I called my trainer, Angelo Hyder, who also trains (Danny) Green and he said, “well Bob what are you going to do ? you’ve got nothing, you have no energy, you are flat”, and I said, “well I’m just going to go out there, and just … go”.
ME ; And what was he like as a fighter ? (Rob Calloway)
BOB ; Oh he was a good fighter, He’d had like 60 and a great fighter, fit and lean, like a real boxer. He called himself The All-American Prizefighter and he was determined. From the first bell, right from the start, it was a war and in the 5th round he clipped my jaw and I thought,… my jaw’s broken, damn !!!. I spat out my mouthguard so it could get replaced, you know, and I caught some big shots for seven more rounds. In round,… I think it was 7 or 8, his face was a mess, his eye was closed, just a big ball, a mess. The referee intervened and got the doctor to look at him and ahh, I thought they would have stopped it, they should have really, but they let it go and I don’t know how he kept going, and, we went the 12 rounds, and….. yeah, he got the decision. The next day his whole face was blown up, (at this point, Bob shows me a photo of Calloway and yep, he sure looked a mess allright)
ME ; Yeah you almost closed his right eye.
BOB ; Yeah it was.
ME ; So was he a walk up sort of fighter or more of a boxer ?
BOB ; A real boxer, great mover but he liked to fight and mix it too.
ME ; Ok, well I wanted to ask you about the Valuev fight, there were a couple of rounds there where you finished looking dejected and discouraged but then come out next round looking determined and ready to war.
BOB ; See, at the time, I was in Perth for 6 or 7 weeks, I knew I had time off, I was over there with some Croatians as I was born in Croatia, they wanted to promote me over there for their festive season. Every night they took me out and we would be out till like 7 or 8 in the morning and then I flew back here and then my trainer Hyder rang me up, he says, “There’s a fight over here (Germany) I want you to fight”, I said, “I haven’t trained for seven or eight weeks”, and then, at the time, I could do with some money you know ? so I thought, well maybe, it wasn’t Valuev at first, it was Timo Hoffman, and I would be offered an immediate rematch. Well the money was ok, I drove back up home and me, I thought, stuff it, I’ll do it. I rang Angelo up and said, yeah I’ll come over. I packed my stuff, next morning I drove down to Sydney airport, I was at the terminal for four hours when the phone rang again. It was Hyder, he said, “Hoffman’s pulled out, but we have an opponent for you.
ME ; (I let out a laugh)
BOB ; ha, yeah, but I know now, that it was a set up. Because you know, no one wanted to fight Valuev, he said, “Look, I understand if you don’t take it, but I must know within the hour if you won’t, so ring me back but there is extra money on top of it”.
ME ; And how many days is this before the fight ?
BOB : I sat down looked around the airport and everybody was buzzing around and I thought stuff it, I’ll fight him. So I rang him back and said I was coming over. I landed there, 5 days out from the fight, normally I’d train at least 8 weeks hard for a fight. Hyder stood next to me, and he is about 5 foot 8 or so, and he said, “see this up here, that’s like how much bigger Valuev is to you”, and I am trying to picture him again because I had met him years ago in Australia when he was here and um, I knew the size of the man and at this time he was like 32 wins or something like that with plenty of knockouts, undefeated and number 4 in the world.
So Hyder is giving me advice, he wants me to go out at the beginning and footy tackle him, ha !! he says he might fall over and the ring is about five feet off the ground and he might hurt himself on a chair, the fight is called off, it’s a draw and you still get paid. Well you know, that first round has over half a million hits on youtube. Anyway, I tried it, I grabbed him, I drove him back but not out of the ring but I tried. Then by the third round, I was exhausted, y’know, cos’ I wasn’t fit, I got back to the corner and I said, “far out, I’m stuffed”, Well Hyder, one thing he’s good at, he is really good at motivating a person, he got into my mind and by round five, I felt better, I got my second wind,.. and you know what ? a lot of Australians think I won.
ME ; Well it was one hell of a gutsy performance mate.
BOB ; Yeah, and he is so strong and he’s 7 foot two right and a 146 kilos when I fought him. A man that big you would think he would have no co-ordination.
ME ; Yeah, he was a vastly improved fighter from when I saw him when he was out here.
BOB ; Yeah, well you know he a world title. In the second round, he dropped me, a big right hand and I thought, far out… you know, well I got back out there and I got him with a big shot too and for a moment, his legs went. I can tell you, his head, …. The size of a basketball.
ME ; So Angelo Hyder was your main trainer throughout your career ?
BOB ; Yeah, he took me to three Australian titles.
ME ; You fought Colin Wilson five times and won every one of them, he is a gutsy fellow too.
BOB ; Yeah, Colin is a really tough boy you know. (Bob has a good chuckle), Well our history of fights, is the longest rivalry in Australian history. The first time I fought him was, I think, in the late 90’s (19/5/1995), and last time I fought him was in 2007, TKO’s three times and the Australian title out of those fights.
ME ; What was your toughest victory in your career do you reckon ?
BOB ; Out of all my fights there have been a few you know. I think maybe the Calloway fight was the hardest fight I ever had, it was an absolute war. He won on points but it was a good close fight. Many people think I won and many boo’d but I dunno, it’s hard to know when you are fighting to try and analyse it, but, yeah I’d say it was fair enough that he won but it could have gone either way, it was very close I think.
ME; OK, what about any fights you think you may have been robbed in ?
BOB ; Well the big one was when Green was fighting for the title in Germany and I fought the bloke I was supposed to fight when I fought Valuev.
ME ; Hoffman ?
BOB ; Yeah, Hoffman, he was overweight and he fought Klitschko too, (Vitaly), and he fought for the I.B.F. title. Everyone knows I won the fight, you know, usually in Germany you must knock their guy out just to get a draw but with 6000 fans in that big marquee, and all those Germans boo’d and then they gave me a standing ovation. I got emails and faxes from people all over Germany saying I won.
PART 1
ME; You were talking about the fight with Rob Calloway ?
Bob ; Paul Briggs who was one of the commentators that night told me, “that was one of the best fights I have ever seen, ever”, It was a massive war. Well before I fought Calloway, right, I was in America sparring for 6 weeks with Mike Tyson, ok, my condition was awesome you know. We were in Phoenix Arizona, It was like, 40 plus degrees every day, I got back here 12 days before the fight, in July in the middle of winter, 3 days out, I got a severe flu, I couldn’t even stand up, I was just, a mess. The first fight in the history of my boxing career I couldn’t get right for a fight. My mum was going through chemo with breast cancer, the day of the fight I called her and I said, “I am so sick, I don’t think I can fight”, “I can’t breathe right, I’m dizzy”, she said, “Son, just like I’m fighting for my life right now, you fight for your life too”, so I thought to myself, hang on, here’s my mum fighting for life and here I am with just the flu, you know ! so what have I got to complain about. I called my trainer, Angelo Hyder, who also trains (Danny) Green and he said, “well Bob what are you going to do ? you’ve got nothing, you have no energy, you are flat”, and I said, “well I’m just going to go out there, and just … go”.
ME ; And what was he like as a fighter ? (Rob Calloway)
BOB ; Oh he was a good fighter, He’d had like 60 and a great fighter, fit and lean, like a real boxer. He called himself The All-American Prizefighter and he was determined. From the first bell, right from the start, it was a war and in the 5th round he clipped my jaw and I thought,… my jaw’s broken, damn !!!. I spat out my mouthguard so it could get replaced, you know, and I caught some big shots for seven more rounds. In round,… I think it was 7 or 8, his face was a mess, his eye was closed, just a big ball, a mess. The referee intervened and got the doctor to look at him and ahh, I thought they would have stopped it, they should have really, but they let it go and I don’t know how he kept going, and, we went the 12 rounds, and….. yeah, he got the decision. The next day his whole face was blown up, (at this point, Bob shows me a photo of Calloway and yep, he sure looked a mess allright)
ME ; Yeah you almost closed his right eye.
BOB ; Yeah it was.
ME ; So was he a walk up sort of fighter or more of a boxer ?
BOB ; A real boxer, great mover but he liked to fight and mix it too.
ME ; Ok, well I wanted to ask you about the Valuev fight, there were a couple of rounds there where you finished looking dejected and discouraged but then come out next round looking determined and ready to war.
BOB ; See, at the time, I was in Perth for 6 or 7 weeks, I knew I had time off, I was over there with some Croatians as I was born in Croatia, they wanted to promote me over there for their festive season. Every night they took me out and we would be out till like 7 or 8 in the morning and then I flew back here and then my trainer Hyder rang me up, he says, “There’s a fight over here (Germany) I want you to fight”, I said, “I haven’t trained for seven or eight weeks”, and then, at the time, I could do with some money you know ? so I thought, well maybe, it wasn’t Valuev at first, it was Timo Hoffman, and I would be offered an immediate rematch. Well the money was ok, I drove back up home and me, I thought, stuff it, I’ll do it. I rang Angelo up and said, yeah I’ll come over. I packed my stuff, next morning I drove down to Sydney airport, I was at the terminal for four hours when the phone rang again. It was Hyder, he said, “Hoffman’s pulled out, but we have an opponent for you.
ME ; (I let out a laugh)
BOB ; ha, yeah, but I know now, that it was a set up. Because you know, no one wanted to fight Valuev, he said, “Look, I understand if you don’t take it, but I must know within the hour if you won’t, so ring me back but there is extra money on top of it”.
ME ; And how many days is this before the fight ?
BOB : I sat down looked around the airport and everybody was buzzing around and I thought stuff it, I’ll fight him. So I rang him back and said I was coming over. I landed there, 5 days out from the fight, normally I’d train at least 8 weeks hard for a fight. Hyder stood next to me, and he is about 5 foot 8 or so, and he said, “see this up here, that’s like how much bigger Valuev is to you”, and I am trying to picture him again because I had met him years ago in Australia when he was here and um, I knew the size of the man and at this time he was like 32 wins or something like that with plenty of knockouts, undefeated and number 4 in the world.
So Hyder is giving me advice, he wants me to go out at the beginning and footy tackle him, ha !! he says he might fall over and the ring is about five feet off the ground and he might hurt himself on a chair, the fight is called off, it’s a draw and you still get paid. Well you know, that first round has over half a million hits on youtube. Anyway, I tried it, I grabbed him, I drove him back but not out of the ring but I tried. Then by the third round, I was exhausted, y’know, cos’ I wasn’t fit, I got back to the corner and I said, “far out, I’m stuffed”, Well Hyder, one thing he’s good at, he is really good at motivating a person, he got into my mind and by round five, I felt better, I got my second wind,.. and you know what ? a lot of Australians think I won.
ME ; Well it was one hell of a gutsy performance mate.
BOB ; Yeah, and he is so strong and he’s 7 foot two right and a 146 kilos when I fought him. A man that big you would think he would have no co-ordination.
ME ; Yeah, he was a vastly improved fighter from when I saw him when he was out here.
BOB ; Yeah, well you know he a world title. In the second round, he dropped me, a big right hand and I thought, far out… you know, well I got back out there and I got him with a big shot too and for a moment, his legs went. I can tell you, his head, …. The size of a basketball.
ME ; So Angelo Hyder was your main trainer throughout your career ?
BOB ; Yeah, he took me to three Australian titles.
ME ; You fought Colin Wilson five times and won every one of them, he is a gutsy fellow too.
BOB ; Yeah, Colin is a really tough boy you know. (Bob has a good chuckle), Well our history of fights, is the longest rivalry in Australian history. The first time I fought him was, I think, in the late 90’s (19/5/1995), and last time I fought him was in 2007, TKO’s three times and the Australian title out of those fights.
ME ; What was your toughest victory in your career do you reckon ?
BOB ; Out of all my fights there have been a few you know. I think maybe the Calloway fight was the hardest fight I ever had, it was an absolute war. He won on points but it was a good close fight. Many people think I won and many boo’d but I dunno, it’s hard to know when you are fighting to try and analyse it, but, yeah I’d say it was fair enough that he won but it could have gone either way, it was very close I think.
ME; OK, what about any fights you think you may have been robbed in ?
BOB ; Well the big one was when Green was fighting for the title in Germany and I fought the bloke I was supposed to fight when I fought Valuev.
ME ; Hoffman ?
BOB ; Yeah, Hoffman, he was overweight and he fought Klitschko too, (Vitaly), and he fought for the I.B.F. title. Everyone knows I won the fight, you know, usually in Germany you must knock their guy out just to get a draw but with 6000 fans in that big marquee, and all those Germans boo’d and then they gave me a standing ovation. I got emails and faxes from people all over Germany saying I won.
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