Former AFL star Barry Hall set to making boxing debut with retiring NRL superstar Paul Gallen
Former AFL star Barry Hall will finally make his boxing debut — and he’s set to jump in the ring with NRL brawler Paul Gallen in a hotly anticipated battle of the football codes.
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Barry Hall’s long awaited professional boxing debut is set to be ignited in a spectacular battle of the codes against rugby league brawler Paul Gallen.
Hall, 42, will enter the ring at Margaret Court Arena on Friday, November 15, with a significant advantage in height (194cm to 180) but a considerable disadvantage in recent boxing experience.
Gallen, 38, is undefeated in nine bouts since turning professional in 2014, including five by stoppage, while continuing a 349-game career with the Cronulla Sharks that ended recently after 19 seasons
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The pair will fight on the undercard of a card highlighted by undefeated Andrew Moloney challenging Guyana’s Elton Dharry for the Interim WBA Super Flyweight Championship, while Moloney’s identical twin in Jason takes on highly-rated Nicaraguan bantamweight Dixon Flores.
Hall has long been teased with extremely attractive financial offers to fight after an impressive amateur career in his teenage years, but twice has got close before withdrawing. He says the time is now right.
“While living in Sydney and Queensland for 10 years, a common comment I heard from NRL fans is that AFL was ‘soft’, well I guess we are all about to find out,” said Hall about an event that is certain to attract huge viewership on Foxtel’s MAIN EVENT channel.
Gallen, a renown hard man in the NRL over his entire career, responded with fighting words of his own: “When his (Hall’s) name was mentioned over the past couple of years I saw it as a challenge and said ‘yes’, but it never eventuated. I guess now we’ll see how good a judge those who back him are.”
The event is being promoted by Green Machine Boxing (Danny Green) and Bell Partners High Performance as Code War, a series of fight nights offering World Title bouts for our best professional boxers plus further match-ups between footballers from different codes.
Danny Green believes the Hall-Gallen clash is a classic match-up between a boxer in Hall and a boxer/brawler in Gallen: “Barry Hall can box, make no mistake about that, and his preparation under Angelo Hyder will be spot on. He will have a significant reach advantage which he will attempt to use to hold off a charging Gallen. I can’t wait.”
Originally published as Former AFL star Barry Hall set to making boxing debut with retiring NRL superstar Paul Gallen