Michael Zerafa is used to being labelled Australian boxing's "villain" but even he was surprised by the level of disrespect thrown his way after his first round KO win over Anthony Mundine, which secured the WBA Oceania middleweight title.
"There's a lot of negativity around it but it is what it is," Zerafa told Wide World of Sports.
"People think I can call up Canelo Alvarez for a fight tomorrow, it doesn't work like that.
"I've been 14 months out of the ring, [Tim] Tszyu didn't want to fight me. Nobody else stepped up, Mundine was the only one that did. He called me out, we didn't call him out."
The fight with Mundine was labelled "sad" by some commentators and "disgusting" by others. It didn't reveal anything new to boxing fans; the sport is littered with stories of ageing former champions looking for the fairytale finish, who instead get their tail waxed on the way out.
Zerafa's win was always going to be overshadowed by the severity of Mundine's demise but the 28-year-old doesn't see it that way.
Asked if he could understand why some of the coverage around the fight wasn't positive, Zerafa said: "Not really, because people pay Main Event to watch Mark Hunt and Paul Gallen, who are older and not even boxers.
"The fact they are giving Mundine a bit of heat when he's 45 years-old, you got guys like Manny Pacquiao still winning world titles at that age.
"So it's pretty disappointing that they are giving him a lot of heat but what do you do."
Mundine was training twice a day in the lead up to the bout, Zerafa claims. The former world champion looked "sharp" on the pads and passed all his medicals.
"Whoever is in front of me I have to do the same job. Whether it be Tim Tszyu or Mundine I had a job to do," he said.
Zerafa is now the top middleweight in the nation and ranked No.9 by the WBA. BoxRec also has him No.11 in the global middleweight pound-for-pound rankings. He admits to having mixed emotions about seeing Mundine go out the way he did, but laughed off claims by critics who say he gained nothing from the fight apart from a juicy purse.
"It was sad to seem him retire in that fashion but at the same time, it could have been the other way around. If I had taken it a bit easier or shown him more respect it could have been over for me," he said.
"All the pressure was on me. If I won, I lost, and if I Iost, I lost; you know what I mean?
"So it was a losing fight for me but what people don't realise it was a battle that got me closer to my dream of becoming a world champion."
While Zerafa is conscious of the outside noise, he understands people see him as the 'bad guy' and has learnt to not invest any emotions in what outsiders think and say.
"To my face, they're always going to be nice because I'm fighter. I'm reading a bit of negativity here and there. But I just switch off," he said.
"Whether I beat the world champion or not, you can't please everybody. I can go out tomorrow and knock out Tim Tszyu and they will say, 'Oh, yeah, but he was this and he was that'.
"That's what happened when I knocked out [Jeff] Horn; 'Oh yeah, but he ate pizza', they said. You can never win."
As for Mundine, the post-fight celebrations with 'The Man' went as expected.
"We caught up and shared a couple of videos that showed me and Choc afterwards. The respect we have for one another, it was good to sail him off and wish him all the best. But it is Mundine, he may return."
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