They have been trading insults online and in the media<\/a> since January, with former Rabbitohs premiership winner Burgess escalating it last week, questioning Asofa-Solomona\u2019s departure from the Melbourne Storm last year. <\/p>\nSpeaking to Code Sports on Wednesday, Burgess also slammed Asofa-Solomona\u2019s choice of opponents, saying the ex-Kiwi Test prop has been taking the \u201ceasy option\u201d in wins over Jeremy Latimore and Jarrod Wallace.<\/p>\n
After weeks of build-up, this masthead can confirm Burgess and Asofa-Solomona will finally throw hands at Pat Rafter Arena on June 24 on the undercard to Queensland hero Liam Paro\u2019s IBF welterweight world title fight with Lewis Crocker. <\/p>\n
Burgess has been ringside for both of Asofa-Solomona\u2019s professional bouts this year, and confronted \u2018Big Nasty\u2019 moments after his debut KO of Latimore in Brisbane in January. <\/p>\n
That was the moment that sparked the rivalry for next month\u2019s fight. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d just had my first professional win, I was trying to celebrate with my family and my people, and George decided that was the moment to jump in, start carrying on and try to make the whole thing about himself,\u201d Asofa-Solomona said. \u201cI took that personally. <\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t forgotten it and he\u2019s going to have to answer for it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgess told Code Sports that same night that Asofa-Solomona was always \u201cscared off mixing it with the big boys\u201d on the footy field.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been talking for months, questioning me, questioning who I\u2019ve fought and acting like I\u2019m some sort of fake,\u201d Asofa-Solomona said. \u201cThat\u2019s fine. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut once the bell rings, none of that matters anymore. This isn\u2019t a footy field. This isn\u2019t Hollywood.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nowhere to hide in there and no one coming to save you.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted my attention and now he\u2019s got it. On June 24, I\u2019m going to make him regret stepping in front of me that night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgess says it\u2019s about time Asofa-Solomona steps into the ring with someone his own size. <\/p>\n
\u201cNelson\u2019s built this image around being the scariest bloke in the room and on June 24 we find out what happens when someone the same size finally stands in front of him and fires back,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to knock out the hype-train.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got heavy hands, sure, but being dangerous for one round or banging on with punters in the streets of Bali is completely different to being able to actually fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boxing promoter No Limit was forced to hire four burly security personnel to keep former NRL rivals Nelson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-673880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673880","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=673880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}