Cody Walker viral fight video leaves NRL in a quandary
Cody Walker’s cameo in the street-fighting viral video leaves the NRL with a difficult question? How should the South Sydney star be punished without making it seem like paying the blackmail sum was the better option, asks PAUL KENT.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The first caution for any good street fight is to beware the man who has the presence of mind to remove his watch before the fight begins.
Any man that has the discipline to ignore temper and the adrenaline surging through him, to consider the risk to his watch no matter how poorly it tells time, is not at his first rodeo.
Following this the second caution is the man willing to first take off his shirt so he can return home with no blood on his chest or no torn collar and tell his wife or partner that it was simply a quiet night with the boys and, pretending to remember back, can’t really remember much exciting happening at all.
The two combatants at the centre of the Cody Walker street fight certainly knew the territory they were in, and both men fought gamely if not with a whole lot of science for the many minutes it lasted.
Relive classic NRL matches from the 60s to today on KAYO SPORTS. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
The first straight punch wins the fight, though.
Watching the fight, you wonder why South Sydney’s Cody Walker got involved at all.
Neither man was hurting the other.
In many ways it was one of the more gentlemanly street fights you will ever see.
A man in a Canberra Raiders jersey referees the fight, stepping in when one slips and hits the ground and pulling them apart when they come together in a clinch.
“Let him up, let him up,” says one onlooker when one of the fighters slips.
At that point the smaller of the two puts his hands out to “touch gloves” like fighters in the ring whenever the referee has separated them and then called them back to action. In these sports, it is effectively a show of sportsmanship.
By then, Walker has already made his cameo.
“Oh my gawd, Cody’s coming up the road here,” says a woman near the camera as the two men fight.
A few more calls of “settle” keep the fight humming along, the two men breaking free and shaping up to each other, feinting like Roy Jones Jr doing his chicken dance, when from nearby a deep voice wonders, “Who’s this mother f…..?”
Walker launches from behind the camera and kicks the smaller man, who stumbles back.
The man stumbles but regains his feet as others move in to calm Walker and lead him away and the fight continues.
Luck goes both ways in rugby league.
In many ways, many will consider Walker unlucky that his cameo was caught on camera and his involvement is now being investigated by the NRL’s Integrity Unit after its spread quickly across Facebook. It is likely to cost him several weeks of football and might lighten his hip pocket, too.
On the flip side, Walker is also very lucky.
Walker kicks at 83 per cent in the NRL but has not kicked a goal since the 2016 season and so was awfully out of form, and so his kick failed to land with any real effect and all the man did was stumble.
Who knows what might have happened if Walker was in form.
Craig Field becomes eligible for parole next year after getting 10 years for manslaughter when he punched a man in a street fight and the man, Kelvin Kane, fell backwards and hit his head and died several days later.
Field was jailed two months after South Sydney’s premiership, which gives the rugby league fan a perspective on how long he has been away.
He told the court his punch was self defence, which was rejected.
Walker told South Sydney the two men were having a fight and he tried to break it up. The reason he kicked one of the men, Souths were led to believe, was because he had recent shoulder surgery and could not use his arms.
The video was shot last October but came to light after Walker told South Sydney officials he was being blackmailed for $20,000 or the video would be made public.
It puts the NRL in a difficult position.
MORE NEWS
Mike Tyson vs Evander Holyfield trilogy fight firming for Sydney
Isolation Training With The Stars: Kookaburra Jake Whetton on the ‘glimmer of hope’ spurring him on
Walker has clearly done the wrong thing. The fight was not his and neither fighter appeared to be having a difficult enough time to justify a third man getting involved.
Players in the past have been suspended and fined for doing less.
But to punish Walker more severely than a $20,000 fine will prompt some to say he should have paid the blackmail and stopped the video getting out and no doubt, because this is rugby league, it will encourage others to try in the future.
Here, the Integrity Unit needs to be strong, and will no doubt be aided by the great warning carried near the end of the footage.
“It’s not going on Facebook,” warns a young woman.
“No,” says the woman filming, “I‘m keeping it on my phone.”