Paul Gallen has made plenty of money out of boxing. This time, he says, the cheque is just the bait. The hook is personal.
Dragged out of retirement and straight into a grudge match with Nelson Asofa-Solomona, the 45-year-old will return to the ring in Sydney on November 6 for a five-round heavyweight clash that carries more bad blood than hype.
No Limit Boxing sent the SOS. Gallen answered. And he insists it’s not because of the extra zero on the contract.
‘I’m going to smash his face in’
Sixteen months after he walked away on the high of beating Sonny Bill Williams, Gallen had no intention of fighting again. He’d done his time, banked his money, and left with his reputation intact after flooring a former WBA heavyweight world champion.
Then came Asofa-Solomona.
The former Melbourne Storm enforcer, now signed to a nine-fight, multi-year deal with No Limit, has been calling Gallen out after each of his first three professional wins over ex-NRL forwards Jeremy Latimore, Jarrod Wallace and George Burgess. The taunts struck a nerve.
Gallen says he was the one who first picked up the phone to help Asofa-Solomona get a start in the sport. He expected gratitude. What he feels he got instead was disrespect.
He told AAP he’d made it clear he was finished with boxing. Asofa-Solomona knew that, Gallen says, but kept using his name to fuel his own rise. To Gallen, that broke the code between former teammates and rivals. It broke mateship.
He believes the 28-year-old has gone too far with the verbal shots. Too personal. Too persistent. And very deliberate.
So when No Limit came back with a seven-figure offer to face “The Big Nasty”, Gallen initially said no. Retirement meant something. Then the money went up again, the calls from Asofa-Solomona kept coming, and the fire he thought had gone out suddenly flared.
Now he’s promising punishment, not a payday.
Size, age and zero fear
On paper, the match-up looks lopsided. Gallen will give away 20 centimetres in height to the two-metre Asofa-Solomona and is 15 years older. The younger man is being groomed as No Limit’s next heavyweight attraction. The older one was supposed to be their past.
Gallen doesn’t care.
He’s already walked down a taller, younger, more decorated boxer in Williams. He’s made a career out of ignoring the tale of the tape and forcing opponents to live with his pace, his chin and his stubbornness.
He’s also not impressed by what he’s seen so far from Asofa-Solomona. Despite the Storm giant cruising through his first three outings and looking a class above his fellow ex-NRL opponents, Gallen is blunt: he doesn’t rate him as a boxer and doesn’t see a future for him in the sport.
From No Limit’s perspective, finding credible opponents for a two-metre, explosive heavyweight has been a headache. For months, they struggled to match Asofa-Solomona. Eventually, they circled back to the man who built their crossover brand: the long-time poster boy who has already earned around $25 million across 16 professional wins.
It took more money. It took more goading. It took more public calling-out from Asofa-Solomona. But Gallen finally bit.
Respect, rivalry and a lit fuse
What really drags him back, though, isn’t the size of the purse. It’s the feeling that a line has been crossed.
Gallen sees younger ex-players out there. He namechecks Curtis Scott. Junior Paulo. Current footy forwards who, in his mind, would be more logical targets for Asofa-Solomona. Instead, the Storm powerhouse keeps circling the retired 45-year-old.
To Gallen, that’s not brave. That’s opportunistic. He feels used. He feels disrespected. And he’s not hiding the anger.
The build-up will sell itself. Two premiership-winning NRL hard men, one the towering new hope of Australian heavyweight boxing, the other the ageing warhorse who refuses to accept that someone else can trade on his name.
On November 6 in Sydney, the talking stops. For Gallen, this isn’t a farewell tour or a nostalgic cash grab. It’s a chance to teach a lesson he believes Asofa-Solomona badly needs.
Respect, he insists, will be settled the old-fashioned way: under bright lights, small gloves, and nowhere to hide.
