That was the money on the table for the Brisbane boxer to fight Ryota Murata, Japan’s former world middleweight champion in Tokyo on July 12.
But Horn – who’s now the No.2 ranked middleweight in the world – turned down the big fight because his wife Joe is scheduled to give birth three weeks earlier.
“My family has always come first,” Horn told The Courier Mail. “Jo really needs me to help her in the weeks after the birth and I want to be there too. To me that’s a lot more precious than money or winning a big fight.”
The fight would have catapulted Horn forward to a world middleweight title fight as the mandatory contender for the belt.
But when the date of the fight changed from early June to July, Horn pulled out to be at make sure he’s at his wife’s side. The couple currently have a 16-month old daughter.
Horn, a former schoolteacher, lost his welterweight boxing world title to Terence Crawford in a nine-round encounter in Las Vegas in June. His manager Dean Lonergan described the fighter’s decision to knock back this opportunity as a “testament to Jeff’s character”.
“With the baby coming, he wouldn’t take it no matter how much money was on the table,” Lonergan said.
