[kenyan_cheena]

The Hartford Courant

SUNDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2006

"The Punching Accountant"
comes home

Story by Howard Byers

In August 2002 Hebron's Christopher Scott Mundt was a young man with a promising future in accountancy ahead of him. Having completed a degree at UConn the previous year, Scott (as he prefers to be known) had secured himself a position with renowned Hartford firm Baines & Co. and, at just 23 years of age, appeared to be set on his course for the future. But within twelve months he was no longer employed by the company. He was no longer residing in the United States, either. In March '03 Mundt made a decision that shocked and surprised his family and friends when he chose to leave America and move to his grandfather's hometown of Zeitz, an old mining town in Germany.

What he planned to achieve or do there was not immediately clear, even to Scott himself. He has since called it "the most impulsive decision" of his life but flash forward to today, November 2006, and in hindsight it almost seems like destiny was at work. Last week Mundt returned home to Connecticut for the first time since his abrupt departure. Not as an accountant, but as one of the most promising heavyweight boxers in the world. To understand why and how, one has to look back to Mundt's teenage years. He had been a keen boxer in high school and at one point was thinking of starting an amateur career. But at UConn he discovered lacrosse and developed a passion for it. Boxing was soon an afterthought.

"I boxed for a few years in school, right up until I was eighteen," Mundt recalled. "But I tried lacrosse and really enjoyed it. I weighed up the appeal of running around trying to propel that little rubber ball into a net against the appeal of getting hit in the head and, well ... chose the rubber ball."

When Mundt moved to Germany in '03 boxing was not even close to being on his mind. Besides having given up on it he'd also stopped following it as a spectator. But within a few months it was back in his life again after, almost by chance, he attended a fight card at the local convention hall. As if a switch had been flicked in his brain, Mundt's hunger and excitement for the sport returned to him on that night and all of a sudden he knew why he'd come to Germany.

"It was amazing," he said. "Almost like a long-forgotten memory. I watched the first couple of fights and that was it. I was hooked. I'd caught "the bug" again. Right then I knew that boxing was going to be a huge part of my future."

The very next day Mundt started training. He's always been a fit individual, much of that as a result of the countless hours of work on his family's farm during his youth. Even so, he had some work to do to get himself to where he'd be fighting fit. By the end of the year he felt confident enough to step into a boxing ring and participated in a number of amateur tournaments in Germany throughout 2004. Mundt made the jump to the professional ranks in early 2005, making his pro debut in February. His minders brought him along slowly, putting him in against limited opposition during those first twelve months. Despite that, it was clear to see that Mundt was a talented pugilist. Many were comparing him to Germany's Olympic bronze medallist Max Schmeling, something that Mundt found quite unnerving. He earned the nickname "The Punching Accountant", with others offering up "The Number Cruncher" as a more witty alternative.

On the 6th of April this year Mundt improved his professional record to 10-0(8) with a 1st round knockout of Philipp Jansen in Berlin. One week later he signed a contract with the International Boxing League and was selected to take part in their Inter-Continental Championship tournament. Things did not go as expected for him there as he was defeated by New Zealand's Neemia Sivivatu in his opening bout on June 26. Mundt was floored four times on the way to a unanimous decision loss. Since then he's recorded wins over Omovo Okocha (KO3) and Nelson Ndungane (UD6) in world ranking bouts to take his record to 12-1(9). With his next fight not scheduled to take place until Christmas Day in Italy, Mundt has taken the chance to make the trip back home and visit with his family and friends.

"I'm not really sure where my next fight will be after Italy," Mundt said. "So I don't know when I'll be coming back to the States again. I'm happy living in Germany and I'll be going straight back home after this trip but I've really missed seeing my family these last three-plus years. It'll be nice to talk to them face to face."

According to the rules of the IBL Mundt will be ranked somewhere between forty and fifty when the organisation releases their initial heavyweight world rankings on the first day of 2007. It means that he has a tough road ahead of him to make it to the top, but it's a road he's looking forward to travelling.

"Nothing worthwhile comes without a struggle," he said. "That loss to Sivivatu has made it more difficult for me because if I'd stayed in the tournament all the way through and kept on winning I'd be starting in the mid-twenties as far as the rankings go. It'll take me at least a good two or three wins once '07 starts just to get that far, so I've got a lot of hard work ahead of me."

He may have some testing times ahead but for now all Scott Mundt is worried about is catching up with those closest to him, who have been out of his life (at least physically) for these last three years and eight months. There's no doubt that they're proud of what he's made of himself during that time and that they'll be following his career every step of the way in the years to come.