Tszyu\u2019s US sparring partner joins \u2018RD1 KO\u2019 debate<\/a><\/p>\nNelson Asofa-Solomona punches Jarrod Wallace. (Photo by Jeremy Ng\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember exactly what happened after my first fight,\u201d Asofa-Solomona said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d just had my first professional win, and was trying to celebrate with my family and my people.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut George decided that was the moment to jump in, start carrying on and try to make the whole thing about himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took that personally. I haven\u2019t forgotten it and he\u2019s going to have to answer for it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asofa-Solomona said he also hadn\u2019t forgotten some of what Burgess, who has now embarked on an acting career post rugby league, said about his boxing crossover, either.<\/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 the former Melbourne prop continued. \u201cAnd that\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut once the bell rings … this isn\u2019t a footy field and this isn\u2019t Hollywood. There\u2019s nowhere to hide in there and no one is 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, meanwhile, said he was ready to end the new No Limit \u201chype train\u201d.<\/p>\n
A member of rugby league\u2019s famous Burgess family, George played more than 200 NRL games across spells with South Sydney, St George Illawarra and the Wigan Warriors.<\/p>\n
He also won the 2014 NRL premiership alongside brothers Sam and Tom in one of the most iconic moments in South Sydney history.<\/p>\n
Burgess also represented both England and Great Britain during his rugby league career, building a reputation as one of the game\u2019s toughest forwards.<\/p>\n
He is also the son and grandson of bare-knuckle fighters, and has spent recent months immersed in fulltime fight training on the Sunshine Coast under former professional boxer Israel Kani.<\/p>\n
NAS issues chilling warning to Wallace | 10:33<\/p>\n
\u201cNelson\u2019s built this image around being the scariest bloke in the room,\u201d Burgess said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut on June 24 we find out what happens when someone the same size finally stands in front of him and fires back.<\/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
No Limit CEO George Rose said the fight has all the ingredients to become one of the biggest crossover heavyweight clashes Australia had seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fight became real the second George stepped into the ring after Nelson\u2019s debut and confronted him face-to-face,\u201d Rose said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver since then there\u2019s been genuine tension between them and neither guy has taken a backwards step. These are two massive human beings with real reputations as enforcers and<\/p>\n
both genuinely believe they\u2019re going to knock the other one out.<\/p>\n
\u201cNelson has already shown he\u2019s got explosive power and George has made it clear he\u2019s not entering boxing for a laugh or a payday. There\u2019s real emotion here, real pride and real bad<\/p>\n
blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nelson Asofa-Solomona will face George Burgess next. (Photo by Chris Hyde\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Speaking with Fox Sports Australia only last month, Burgess credited Hollywood\u2019s Russell Crowe for his surprise boxing foray, while also revealing how he has previously worked with the likes of Jeff Fenech and Danny Green.<\/p>\n
Since retiring, the former Rabbitoh has taken up acting and, most recently, owned a role in a new Australian MMA film \u2013 \u2018Beast\u2019 \u2013 which is co-written by and stars Crowe.<\/p>\n
Other actors involved include Daniel McPherson, Luke Hemsworth, and Amy Shark.<\/p>\n
Burgess explained how, as part of filming for said flick, the crew jetted across to Asia and filmed scenes on the same night of a One Championship bout in Bangkok.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we got to experience walking out with the full crowd,\u201d the former leaguie explained. \u201cSame as we also did filming between bouts on the card, which really gave me the push to have a fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust feeling all the energy that comes with being part of a fight night, it was great.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd even though it\u2019s a movie, it felt real for me. Really got the juices flowing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burgess also revealed he has previously trained with both Fenech and Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was also supposed to fight Barry Hall six years ago,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut I turned it down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was only going to have four weeks to prepare, and had also just signed with Wigan.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I didn\u2019t want to disrespect them by signing for a fight when I should be at pre-season training over there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I turned it down and Paul Gallen took the fight instead \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nelson Asofa-Solomona and George Burgess have ignited what may be the greatest stink in Magic Round history after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-673956","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\/673956","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=673956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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