‘Please do a job on him’: NAS primed
Occasionally, pre-fight verbal sparring comes across as forced, inauthentic and, to be honest, pretty damn tacky.
This doesn’t quite feel like that.
Sure, there’s no question it’s pretty unsavoury, but I do get the feeling that these two main event blokes just don’t like each other that much.
And yesterday, at the weigh in, Nelson Asofa-Solomona dug the boot into Paul Gallen even more, by saying that not many other people like the former Sharks star either.
“There’s been so many people jumping in my DMs,” Asofa-Solomona said on Thursday.
“People that have played with him, people that have played against him, people who have worked with them in the past. They were telling me all these stories about him and saying ‘Yeah, bro, please do a job on him.'”
Read more here.
Prelim results
The prelims got underway at 5:30pm AEDT, prior to the pay per view card getting started.
Here’s the results:
- Kya Sparks beaten by Zidane Tavares by unanimous decision
A really excellent, seesawing contest between the Sydneysider and the Frenchman that had a little bit of everything – Sparks was even told to tape up his rat’s tail hair style, with the referee taking him to his opponent’s corner to get it done before realising his mistake. It went to the judge’s scorecards, who I did not envy. All three judges scored it to Tavares, 49-46, 48-47, 48-47, much to Sparks’ disappointment.
- Alex Naman beat Zain Adams by TKO in Rd 3
Adams had a clear reach and height advantage and made use of it as well brilliantly in the first round, despite Naman persistently burrowing under the guard. Incredibly, Naman dropped Adams twice in the second, although only one counted. It didn’t perturb him though, a brutal right dropping the taller man in the third, the referee waving off the fight after the count.
- Jayden Fadel beat Rajesh Kumar by TKO in Rd 5
Fadel controlled the fight from the off, but it took a brutal overhand right in the final second of the fifth and final round to secure the TKO victory and move to 7-0 (7KOs). Kumar got up, but was in all sorts and the referee rightly called it.
Fight night in Sydney
Good evening folks and welcome to the ABC Sport coverage of the latest boxing-NRL crossover event to hit our screens.
My name is Simon Smale and I am not at ringside for you tonight, as we witness a packed card of rising Australian ring talent and a couple of old NRL players fighting it out for our entertainment.
The headline bout is between Paul Gallen and Nelso Asofa-Solomona, former rivals on the field in the NRL for the Sharks and Storm respectively, now taking their grievances into the squared circle in Darling Harbour.
The merits or otherwise of these crossover fights will always be worth debating – and we can certainly do that in the comments to our hearts content.
However, there is some proper stuff happening in the ring as well, with the hugely exciting Callum Peters looking to extend his unbeaten fight record at middleweight, while two Aussie super lightweights in Jake Whyllie and Ahmad Reda are going to duke it out in what is turning into a fascinating rivalry.
We also have Paulo Aokuso defending his IBF intercontinental light heavyweight title against unbeaten Austrian Mohin Khahrazeh, so plenty to get our teeth into.
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