He had prime seats for last month’s Nikita Tszyu v Koen Mazoudier showdown in Sydney, but Jeff Fenech’s mind was somewhere else entirely that night. “There’s a guy you need have a look at,” he told this masthead as Conor Wallace and Jerome Pampellone threw haymakers in the opening round of their slugfest. “Great young fighter, tattoos everywhere.
“He’s gonna be good – trust me.” Just hours earlier, Fenech had taken rising welterweight star Jason Mallia (8-0) through a training session in the gym at the back of his house. An audience at Fenech’s Five Dock hurt locker has become something of a pilgrimage for up-and-coming Aussie boxers, and the 29-year-old Mallia soaked it all up.
Fenech was impressed. So much so that he was still raving about the tatted up kid from Melbourne at the fights later that night. “I showed him some stuff, we talked and he took it all in,” Fenech said of that session.
“Then I gave him some hard work as well. “There’s no use in doing the hard work if you’re doing it wrong. “He’s very, very good and that time I spent with him, he was so zoned in.
” Mallia takes on Ben Horn – Jeff’s brother – tonight in Melbourne for the Australian welterweight title as he kicks off the next stage of his professional career. The card will be broadcast on Fox Sports and Kayo Sports as Will Tomlinson’s Wildfighter Promotions works in conjunction with No Limit Boxing. Fenech says he hopes to work with his fellow Maltese fighter.