| by
Paul Upham
APRIL 1, 2004 - “MUNDINE
v GREEN - IT'S ON!! AUGUST 4 !!
Yes,
I confess, my article on the Mundine-Green fight being
set for August 4 was an April Fools Day joke. I must say
though, when I first wrote the piece, I didn’t think
that so many people would be taken in. I guess I should
have realised the impact the thought of a Mundine-Green
fight has on people when our hardworking webmaster Annie
e-mailed me back upon receiving my submission saying how
happy she was that the ‘fight’ was finally
going to happen. “Thanks a million” she wrote.
“Incredible. I’ll have it up in twenty minutes
with a full photo layout and featured on the main page.”
It took her only a few more minutes to work out what day
it was as she placed the article’s date on the top
of the piece.
I
sat back and the phone calls started to come flooding
in. One of the first was from a well known member of Team
Fenech. “I was with Jeff yesterday afternoon and
he never mentioned anything about this,” he lamented
sadly, feeling left out.
One
of the programming officers at Fox Sports in Sydney rang
me shortly after. He had only seen the headline and without
even reading the rest of the story stood up on his office
chair and announced to twenty of his fellow workers that
the Mundine-Green fight was set for August 4. “Sit
down,” said one his colleagues. “Don’t
you know that it’s April Fools Day”. He slunk
back down in his chair and e-mailed his news that he had
been caught. “You got me hook line and sinker,”
he wrote. I called him straight back and asked why he
had never even been slightly suspicious. “With your
credibility Paul, we believe everything you ever write.”
I wonder where that credibility of mine is now?
One
of publicists at Main Event immediately rang Anthony Mundine’s
manager Khoder Nasser as soon as she read the piece, asking
if they needed any help to arrange the press conference
at the Opera House. The words I received down the phone
line later on are not printable on this family website.
Ouch!
The
lads at SBS Television Sports rang to say that two camera
crews had been assigned to cover the morning’s press
conference, while honest Fox Sports ring announcer and
NRL television caller Andy Raymond gave himself up straight
away by SMS. “You got me you sneaky snake,”
he texted.
It
was about this time that I received an e-mail from one
of the more senior managers at Sky Channel who wrote.
“What’s this bullshit. Fenech and Wheatley
never even invited me to the press conference?”
“You
know what day it is,” I replied.
“Oh,
I’m so dumb,” came the quick on-line response.
Famed
Aussie Forum regular “T-Man” was on to me
straight away, as was Jamie Pandaram at the Torch newspaper.
The staff at Main Event television were all on the ball
and Head of Production David Spencer took great pleasure
in relaying Glenn Wheatley’s thoughts. “I
love that Paul Upham and hate him at the same time.”
Apparently
Wheatley received a number of telephone calls congratulating
him on making the fight that could not be made. When I
finally spoke to Glenn on the phone, he took it all fantastically.
“I have never laughed so much in my life,”
he said. “But just remember, I’m doing everything
I can to really make this fight happen.”
Hopefully
time will prove him right.
Perth
trainer Craig Christian was another who gave himself up.
I then rang the proprietor of AussieBox Stuart Duncan
and he could hardly talk he was laughing that hard. People
had been calling him non-stop with their own tales of
being caught out.
I
went out of my office for a little while and I received
over thirty calls on my mobile phone from people asking
me if the story was true, telling me that had been caught
out or straight out abusing me for my little joke. I received
so many calls the battery of my phone went dead. Around
midday, the AussieBox website crashed, such was the demand
on the main story.
Earlier
in the morning after the story had been launched and a
few calls and e-mails had come in, I was in my home office
chuckling to myself when my wife asked me what all the
fun was about. I explained what I had done and stated
that I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people
I had caught out. She went out to take the kids to school
and a few minutes later just as I was leaning back in
my chair enjoying my work, she rang to say that the car
had a flat tyre out the front of the school. I would have
to walk 10 minutes up the road to change the tyre. “Where’s
the justice,” I thought. Just when I was enjoying
myself so much, this happens. Just then she replied, “April
Fools!”
APRIL
1, 2004 - “MUNDINE v GREEN - IT'S ON!! AUGUST 4
!!
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