Rex Hunt

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For the former governor of the Falkland Islands see Rex Masterman Hunt.
Rex Hunt
Personal Info
Birth March 7, 1949, Mentone, Victoria
Recruited from Parkdale, Victoria


Playing Career¹
Debut 1968 Round 5, Richmond vs. South Melbourne, at Lakeside Oval
Team(s) Richmond (1968-1974)

113 games, 121 goals

Geelong (1974-1975)

32 games, 44 goals

St Kilda (1975-1978)

57 games, 111 goals
¹ Statistics to end of season
Career Highlights

Rex James Hunt (b. March 7, 1949), is a controversial Australian television and radio personality featured on his own fishing and wildlife programme on the Seven Network. He is also a former Australian rules football player and commentator and police officer.

Hunt also owns a restaurant, the D'lish Fish located in Port Melbourne, opposite Melbourne's Station Pier and lives in a multi-million dollar mansion incorporating a miniature golf course in suburban Beaumaris, Victoria.

Contents

[edit] Football career

Hunt, recruited from Parkdale, made his debut with Richmond in the then-Victorian Football League in 1968. He was a key position player who was used usually at full-forward or centre half-forward, but later played at centre half-back. He was part of the Tigers premiership side in 1973. In the middle of 1974, Hunt moved to the Geelong Football Club due to his job as a policeman. The big strong forward played at Geelong from 1974-1975 playing only 32 games for the club, before moving back to the city and playing with St Kilda. He retired from VFL football at the end of 1978, but continued to play in the lower-level VFA in 1980 and 1981, with Sandringham.

[edit] Commentary career

After his retirement Hunt became a popular football commentator for 3AW, helping them surge up the ratings. He also hosted Sunday morning panel shows on the Seven Network, the Sportsworld Footy Panel and I'm Rex Hunt and You're Not.

[edit] Nicknames

See also List of nicknames used in Australian rules.

He is best known for his commentary on 3AW, and has a penchant for making up nicknames for players such as 'Ot 'n' Sticky for Geelong footballer Brad Ottens; Yellow Brick Croad for Hawthorn footballer Trent Croad; "Oysters Kilpatrick" for Geelong footballer Glenn Kilpatrick; "Special Fried Rice" for ex-Carlton footballer Dean Rice; "The Mediator" for Kangaroos footballer Troy Makepeace; "Heavy Overnight Dew" for Port Adelaide footballer Stuart Dew; "Horney Torney" for Richmond and Adelaide footballer Jason Torney; "Awesome Wells" for Kangaroos player Daniel Wells; the list goes on.

[edit] Gary Ablett's 'Mark of the Century'

This was no doubt Rex's finest and favourite moment in his commentary career, when on in the last quarter at the MCG on Mothers' Day, May 8th 1994, Geelong's Gary Ablett launched himself over Collingwood's Gary Pert to take the 'Mark of the Century'. Hunt explained the situation to listeners by quotes such as "they didn't go that high when they went to the moon!", "that has to be the greatest mark that anyone has ever seen!" and "I don't believe it. I do not believe it.".

[edit] Famous quotes

  • "Yibbida yibbida, that is all" - a take off of Looney Tunes' character Porky Pig's exclamation of "that is all folks!"
  • "Marvellous transportation of the air conveyance" (great movement of the football)
  • "Lick my date Kerry Blake"
  • "Thank your mother for the rabbits"
  • "mongrel, finger-breaking, up-country punt" (shocking kick)
  • "(sung) iiiiiiitttt'ssssss ooooooooooo-VVVEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!" (the fat lady sings)
  • "yyyyYYYYYYYYAAAAAABBBBBLEEETTTTTTTTT!" (the great Gary Ablett)
  • "I'd rather go to hell than to Byron Bay"
  • "I'm Rex Hunt and you're not"
  • "I'm invincible, I'm paying money, the girl's happy, she's got no money, I got my rocks off, how good is this?" [1]
  • "Thats what a fool does" (In reference to sex scandal).
  • "i'm not payin' taxes to keep these little turds of the street!" (In reference to Byron Bay incident).

[edit] Fishing journalistic career

By 1981 Hunt was giving regular radio fishing reports and had made two videos on the subject.

His first television fishing show was Angling Action on the Ten Network. Two series of 13 episodes were made and were shown in 1981 and 1982 respectively. His 3DB radio fishing show begain in 1982.

Throughout the 1980s, Hunt continued to write for a number of newspapers and magazines.

In 1991 a series of Rex Hunt's Fishing World was made and broadcast in Victoria on Channel Seven. A new and longer series of the show went national as Rex Hunt's Fishing Australia the following year. In 1992, the name changed again to Rex Hunt's Fishing Adventures, which remained until 2004 when the final episode was made.

[edit] Highest paid tv personality

In many of those years Rex Hunt was Australia's tv personality with the highest revenue, his income reportedly reaching well into the eight digits sphere.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Airline Incident

In May 2004, Hunt made a curious attempt to make a statement about airline security, which has been markedly increased in Australia after terrorist threats. Hunt was agitated at having to remove his pants and footwear after setting off a metal detector.

He then took ten metal forks from the Qantas Club, and took them on board a Qantas flight from Adelaide headed for Melbourne in an attempt to prove that airport security was flawed. A concerned passenger who did not recognize Hunt alerted the flight crew and he was detained and questioned upon arrival in Melbourne, where he was questioned for approximately 30 minutes and let go without any charges filed against him.

[edit] Leon Davis incident

In 2005, Hunt was involved in a controversy when he let slip that Aboriginal footballer Leon Davis was "as black as a dog", during a football broadcast on 3AW. The incident occurred as the weather that night was miserable, whereby Hunt would usually describe the conditions "as black as dog's guts". Hunt later apologised.

[edit] Byron Bay Assault

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During a trip to Byron Bay in October of 2005, Hunt and his 28 year old son Matthew Hunt were bashed by a group of up to 15 youths. Hunt was reported to have said (in relation to the possibility of suing the attackers)

"Even if you live in a tent, I'll take your tent off you. I want to do this for all the families being run out of this area. You'd expect kids like that to be at home supervised"

Hunt suffered a gash across his head while his son, Matthew Hunt, suffered facial and shoulder injuries when he came to his father's aid.

- This is factually incorrect, and assumes the writer is quoting a fact, that Matthew came to his father's aid. Matthew who was very drunk, took offence to the boys skating in the Hogs Breath Arcade, and abused them, identifying himself as Rex Hunt’s son. One of the boys said "Rex Cunt? Who the fuck is Rex Cunt?" at which Mathew attacked him. The gash to Rex Hunt's head, was caused by his own daughter in law, who took off her stilettos and attacked one of the boys, accidentally hitting Rex. There were over 30 local witnesses to the attack, all of whom were willing to give a statement, that it was in fact Matthew, who started the fight. The brawl took place underneath the Hogs Breath Cafe, which has security cameras and this footage was supplied to the Police within hours of the fight. The footage clearly show Matthew instigating the fight. Matthew and Rex, were very, very drunk, the boys however, were not. The boys belong to a Byron Bay youth group, that swears off drinking, drugs and smoking. Matthew and Rex were both given ample opportunity to give statements to the police, and in the end declined. A likely reason is that though they were prepared to give one version to the media, it’s unlikely they would be prepared to swear to it under oath, with so many witnesses seeing what really happened as well as video of the fight. It’s now a matter of public record that Rex has cheated on his wife for 15 years, whilst publicly lambasting the similar actions of others, so his credibility is indisputably, poor. Rex's lies damaged the reputation of Byron Bay, causing a noticeable drop in visitors to the area over the following months.

In a story on A Current Affair, however, the teenagers involved in the attack contradicted Hunt's version of events.

[edit] Sex scandal

On May 17, 2006, News Ltd (which operates Melbourne's Herald-Sun and other newspapers) exposed Hunt's secret sexual liaisons after an investigation.

Hunt confessed to the newspaper that he had "arrangements" involving three women going back to the early 1990s pursuant to which Hunt paid each of them about $1000 a week for sex.

Robyn Hood, 40, was named in local newspapers as one of the three. She blew the whistle on Hunt's arrangement after he attempted to pay her up to $50,000 to end the deal and keep it secret. She claims that she is not a prostitute. [2]

Hunt has been accused of hypocrisy [3], since he has repeatedly attacked other media personalities for sexual infidelity.

A soundbite of Rex Hunt's comments ("I'm invincible. I'm paying money...") on this matter has gained its own unlikely cult following, after being repeatedly played on Triple M radio program Get This hosted by Tony Martin. Martin has neglected the soundbite of late, however it is fundamental to the success of the show.

[edit] External links

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