The 2015 Premiership-winner is deep in training, and has been agitating for a shot at \u2018Big Nasty\u2019 since their first confrontation in January.<\/p>\n
Burgess, who is starring in Russell Crowe\u2019s new MMA movie \u2018Beast\u2019, jetted into Sydney on Friday from Queensland, and wasted no time calling Asofa-Solomona out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m good to go right now, I\u2019ve been training and putting in some work,\u201d Burgess told Code Sports. \u201cI\u2019m gonna go and watch the fights up close and see if he\u2019s improved at all since January.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll have to recover from his fight with J-Wall though \u2013 hopefully he doesn\u2019t get too badly injured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their rivalry kicked off in January when Burgess confronted Asofa-Solomona following his quick-fire knockout of Jeremy Latimore.<\/p>\n
The move angered Asofa-Solomona, who felt Burgess was just doing it for the attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to see my family and give them a hug and a kiss and here he is coming from the side trying to ignite this fight,\u201d Asofa-Solomona told Code Sports. \u201cI get that, but there\u2019s a time and a place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t it, and I took that as disrespect.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not how Burgess remembers it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came up to me and asked for a picture,\u201d he laughed. \u201cI think he wanted a kiss and a hug.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to Code later that same night, Burgess said Asofa-Solomona would rarely run at opposing front-rowers and was \u201cscared\u201d of \u201cmixing it with the big boys.\u201d<\/p>\n
He doubled down on those comments this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe defended out wide where it was quiet \u2013 that was his way,\u201d Burgess said. \u201cI don\u2019t remember being in too many collisions with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d go looking for him off kick-offs, but it would always be Dale Finucane or the Bromwich brothers and not so much Nelson.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he took kick-off returns, he\u2019d veer into the middle and go to a centre or a halfback at the last minute.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asofa-Solomona defended his footy career when asked about Burgess\u2019 comments this week, and said the South Sydney forward has been ducking him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called him out and he went quiet,\u201d he said. \u201cHe gave me the seen on Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounded like he didn\u2019t want to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Again, that\u2019s not Burgess\u2019 memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what that was all about,\u201d he said. \u201cI double checked my Instagram the other day when he said that, and there was nothing there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might have been messaging the wrong person.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"NAS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/c13483334dfacb5fd2cdd7da725db043.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Burgess played 149 times for Souths and made 15 Test appearances for England, before finishing his career with three seasons in the Super League.<\/p>\n
He hasn\u2019t had a fight just yet, but is a long-time fan of boxing and was even offered the chance to fight AFL legend Barry Hall in 2019.<\/p>\n
The Englishman had just signed a new footy contract and couldn\u2019t accept bout, with Hall eventually fighting Paul Gallen instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was definitely keen to fight him then, but it just didn\u2019t work out,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to disrespect my new club.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoxing is the hardest sport in the world, in my opinion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been enjoyable, I love the training and it\u2019s given me motivation to push the envelope and get back into that warrior mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite all the big talk, Asofa-Solomona still doesn\u2019t know whether Burgess will actually take the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can talk about it, but not too many people can be about it,\u201d he said. \u201cDoes he really want it? I\u2019m not too sure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he does, he just wants it for the attention.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Burgess is planning a ringside confrontation with Nelson Asofa-Solomona on Sunday, as the former Rabbitohs forward hopes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,689,211331,285292,802,28350,651,9124,190271,1208,2057,84011,150045,285289,219492,2105,279087,27662,211637,285286,75778,673,3583,677,285291,2821,701,285288,31121,85,14869,670,285290,285287],"class_list":["post-582427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-barry-hall","tag-big-bopper-blockbuster","tag-boxing","tag-brendan-bradford","tag-brisbane","tag-chris-hyde","tag-dale-finucane","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-fletch-hindy","tag-footy-career","tag-footy-contract","tag-george-burgess","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-jarrod-wallace","tag-jeff-fenech","tag-jeremy-latimore","tag-kick-off-returns","tag-nelson-asofa-solomona","tag-new-south-wales","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-one-time-footy-rival","tag-paul-gallen","tag-queensland","tag-ringside-confrontation","tag-russell-crowe","tag-sports","tag-super-league","tag-sydney","tag-undercard-highlights","tag-warrior-mentality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}