By Jonty Ralphsmith
Over the Christmas period, the Star News’ sports team will be re-sharing some of the most popular stories from over the course of 2023.
Thank you for supporting our newspapers over the course of the year. We hope you enjoy the selection and have a wonderful holiday period, however you choose to celebrate.
Steady, sustained improvement is the recipe for Cranbourne professional boxer Theo Dounias.
Dounias holds a 4-1 record in his professional career which includes a victory over Ryan Cotton, who had 13 more professional fights under his belt than Dounias going into the ring.
Following that victory, and a win by knockout over Manyang Dut in August last year, he backed himself to fight Australian champion Mason Smith.
Rather than using his early professional fights to get the sugar-hit of confidence from knockouts against easy beats, he took the route of delayed gratification.
The 23-year-old resisted the likelihood of a win for an educational piece against a more seasoned opponent, the fruits of which will become apparent with each succeeding fight.
The fight against Smith came about because Dounias couldn’t agree on terms with those marginally more experienced than him and the 28-year-old was the next best thing.
It was a learning experience for Dounias who, “fought with anger”.
“Everything was going well until I threw the game plan out the window and I thought my head was a shield,” he explained.
“I lost my cool – my first couple of fights compared to that fight is like a completely different human.
“I’ve acknowledged that, I think I just had a mental block and I was trying to make up for experience with pure brute force because that is my strong suit.
“Usually I can overpower people but it wasn’t going to work with this fight because he was too good and it was a step up.
“There was moments where it was neck-and-neck and when they could calm me down and the nerves weren’t there, it was even.
“But as soon as I lost the plot and tried to end the fight because I knew I probably wouldn’t win on points, I paid the price.
“When you fight with anger, it doesn’t work.
“It’s like going through a roundabout at 100-ks an hour, you’re going to crash.”
Next up, Dounias hopes to fight someone with similar experience in the middle of the year.
It’s a 10-week build-up to a fight for Dounias to get into fighting condition – his day-to-day dietary discipline helping him enter the ring at his peak.
Under the tutelage of Dad, John, a high-profile coach who has worked with some of Australia’s best, Theo was born into an environment to thrive.
He’s been in a gym since the age of four which gives him innate instinct and understanding in the ring.
He has hand-speed, balance, evasiveness, a lethal right arm and a stinging left-arm jab.
So powerful was his right arm at 16-years-old that he was not allowed to fight against people his age.
At that age, he was getting matched against 30-year-olds and saw no point in even sparring against people his own age.
After a 16-4 amateur record, his first professional fight was in March 2021, which whet his appetite for combat.
He took care of Queensland amateur champion Cody Cole to kick off his pro career.
Following that was a fight against a seasoned national level kick-boxer which gave him a satisfying victory.
Jason Medawar stymied Dounias’ aggression with swift evasiveness. It became a bout of skill and guile which offered key learnings on the way to victory.
Fight number three posed another challenge, for it was the first professional fight in the super welterweight class – and opponent Ryan Cotten had 16 professional fights under his belt.
“I was told ‘this guy wants to knock you out as much as you want to knock him out’ and I started laughing and said ‘alright no worries’.
He came at me like a train and that was the whole four rounds, it was like a car crash.”
Dounias won that by unanimous decision.
The most recent win, over Manyang Dut, was the highlight of his pro-career to date.
Dounias spent the first round assessing his opponent’s jabs to pick holes in his guard before getting floored by a brutal liver shot.
“All I remember is looking at the corner, getting up, putting my gloves up to say I’m good and I didn’t listen to the referee.
“He was looking at me but I was looking at the corner, and all of a sudden my opponent is coming at me again and I had to switch on.
“He threw a jab and he kept swinging at me to finish me off because he had me down and as he’s swinging in, I’ve just thrown a right hand and knocked him out.”
