Paul Gallen blasts ‘Stan’s boy’ SBW: ‘To entertain the idea of two-minute rounds in a fight this big is insane’

There’s a divide between Nine stablemates WWOS and Stan – and Paul Gallen can feel the chill in the lead-up to this long-awaited bout for a shameless payday.

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Of all the insults and threats fired between Sonny Bill Williams and in the lead-up to their heavyweight bout on Wednesday night, the most interesting — and most overlooked — concerns Gallen’s distrust of his own employer.

Gallen and Williams are both contracted to Channel 9 but that doesn’t mean they’re beloved colleagues shooting the breeze in the tearoom.

Wide World of Sports and Stan are considered different entities under the Nine Entertainment Co umbrella. Gallen appears on Nine’s NRL coverage while Williams calls rugby union on Stan, which will broadcast the fight at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney as a pay-for-view option for $70.

There’s a divide between WWOS and Stan, and Gallen can feel the chill in the lead-up to this long-awaited bout, which isn’t for a belt but a shameless payday of $1m per fighter.

Gallen’s fears centre around Stan agreeing to Williams’ request for eight two-minute rounds. Most professional fights are three-minute rounds.

“For Stan to even entertain the idea of two-minute rounds in a fight this big is insane – it’s ridiculous,” Gallen told the Off the Record podcast, which I co-host with The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield.

Paul Gallen speaks on Monday in the lead-up to his clash with Sonny Bill Williams in Sydney Picture: Getty Images

“But Sonny’s Stan’s boy. He works for them. He doesn’t really work for Nine. I don’t feel that with Stan. I feel like he’s the A-side of the promotion, which he is. Anything Sonny wants, he gets. They seem to tiptoe around him a hell of a lot.”

Stan director of sport Ben Kimber told Gallen late last year he could take it or leave it.

“That was the sticking point for four or five months,” Gallen said. “We’re negotiating, trying to get to three-minute rounds, trying to get more money, trying to get them to subsidise because I’m going to give him an advantage. It wouldn’t happen.

“Basically, it reached a stage where Ben Kimber said, ‘Look, yeah, that’s it. There’s no more negotiation. Nothing else we can do. Take it or leave it’. And I said, ‘OK, I’ll take it. Let’s do it.’”

That Gallen came out of retirement after three years to fight Williams barely surprised those who know the man equally fond of a dollar as he is in despising his Nine stablemate.

The hatred between the pair is real. They have both said they won’t shake hands after the fight.

While Williams has endlessly branded Gallen a “drug cheat” because he accepted a backdated suspension from the NRL for his role in the Cronulla peptides scandal of 2011, Gallen told our podcast he feared for the integrity of the bout because of Williams’ history in the ring.

“I’m extremely concerned about the fight,” he said. “The only way I can win is if I knock him out.”

The first and only time I covered one of Williams’ fights was his WBA International Heavyweight title bout against South African bull Francois Botha at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre in February 2013.

Williams’ manager and promoter, Khoder Nasser, had asked me to approach the event with “eyes wide open” after falling out with the pair over coverage of Williams’ messy departure from the Bulldogs five years earlier.

Former heavyweight world champion Francois Botha connects with Sonny Bill Williams during their heavyweight bout in Brisbane in 2013 Picture: Getty Images

With eyes wide open, sitting so close to the ring my Spirax notebook was splattered with blood and sweat, I witnessed a shameful night for Australian boxing.

The fight was scheduled to go 12 rounds. The match referee, the judges, the press and most certainly Botha’s corner thought it was a 12-rounder.

Fresh from helping the All Blacks to the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Williams looked ridiculously fit. But as the rounds started to fall, he began to fade.

Botha was terribly out of shape but was still an experienced campaigner who’d fought Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. His game plan was to ruffle and tire Williams, twice reaching around the referee to whack his younger, fitter opponent.

As the ninth ended, Williams held on to the “White Buffalo” for dear life, his eyes rolling back into his head with exhaustion.

When the ring announcer declared the 10th would be the final round, confusion reigned. Botha’s corner, which had spoken in Afrikaans until this point, started hurling abuse in English.

Williams looked like a drowning man clutching a liferaft in that final round, holding on to Botha so much he was eventually deducted a point.

As soon as the fight ended, Nasser climbed into the ring, grabbed Williams by the hand and hoisted it into the air.

“The winner!” he declared. Williams won via a unanimous points decision.

Days later, Botha tested positive to a banned substance and the mysterious way a couple of rounds were shaved off the fight was soon forgotten, but the legendary Australian trainer Johnny Lewis was not impressed.

“Another nail in boxing’s coffin,” the Hall of Fame trainer said at the time.

Raise the Botha fight with Gallen and he makes a plea to the referees and judges who will be involved in his showdown with Williams on Wednesday night.

Paul Gallen and Barry Hall compete during the Code War boxing night in Melbourne in 2019 Picture: AAP

“I just hope the Combat Sports [Authority] have the most honest people involved,” he said. “The amount of holding he might be able to do … We saw when I fought Barry Hall, he somehow got away with being able to hold me from the first second to the last minute of the six rounds. He got away with it. He never had a point deducted.

“Now I approached Combat Sports before that fight, I said we got told he’s just going to hold me constantly, hold me when I get near him. They said, ‘Oh, he’s not allowed to do that intentionally.’ That’s what I’m concerned about that with this fight.”

As rugby league players, Williams and Gallen were tough as they come, but different in how they played: Williams was at his explosive best playing on the edges while Gallen never stopped trucking through the middle of the field, such was his stamina.

The same applies to their boxing styles. Gallen’s got a big tank with a big knockout punch, that’s why he wants three-minute rounds. The big question mark over Williams’ boxing career is his endurance, hence the desire for two-minute rounds.

Williams has a distinct height advantage – 191cm to Gallen’s 179cm – which means Gallen will need to get close in if he’s to land the knockout punch he needs to win, allowing Williams to bear hug him if he’s running out of gas.

Because that’s what Australian boxing needs: another cuddle-fest in which each boxer gets a hefty payday while the mug who paid $70 wonders if it was worth it.