UFC legend Mark Hunt has warned that he still has the power to knock Paul Gallen right out of the ring when they face off in boxing gloves.
Hunt and Gallen will fight at Bankwest Stadium on December 16 and while the MMA great may be 46, three years on from his last fight, he reckons he can still finish the NRL legend with one shot.
"I expect Gal to come like a crazy, wild animal and I'm supposed to hit him out of the ring," Hunt told Sky Sports Radio.
"One uppercut and he flies out of the ring. Easy. Done. Easy work."
Hunt hasn't had a pro boxing fight since 2000, a draw with Joe Askew, and recorded a points loss two years prior against John Wyborn. His MMA career, in which he became the UFC's walk-off KO king, ended in three losses for a record of 13-14-1, 1 NC, 10 KOs.
Gallen, 39, has made the bold prediction that he can finish Hunt by round three or four, overwhelming him with greater speed and fitness.
Hunt insisted that his conditioning had been sound, having waited all year to lock in a date for the fight due to COVID-19. He has based his camp in Newcastle and said that he was prepared to go the distance – six rounds – with Gallen if need be.
Hunt said that while Gallen (9-0-1, 5 KOs) was famously tough on the rugby league field, he was yet to have hit mettle tested in the ring.
"You know me, I'm a fighter, I've been doing it forever, three decades," Hunt said.
"I can go all day long, I'll eat that s–t up. I love this s–t, this is a fighter's life.
"I know Gal's a tenacious person, just like I am. He's very fit, he's very strong, he comes forward a lot.
"I haven't seen him hurt in the boxing game yet. As an ex-footy player, he's been hurt many times, multiple times, and that's something a footy player and a fighter has to go through while they're playing at the top end.
"I've done that many times and he's done that many times on the footy field. I don't know about the boxing side of it."
Hunt said that he was planning on making the Gallen fight an enjoyable exclamation point on his career, which has been soured by his acrimonious split with the UFC. 'The Super Samoan' became disillusioned with MMA late in his career, enraged that he was coming up against opponents juiced up on banned performance-enhancing drugs.
"They (the UFC) took away my love of what I do for a living, they took away my love of fighting," Hunt said.
"It ended up just being a normal job at the end of the day with these guys, because I kept arguing about everything."
Hunt is a revered figure in MMA, to the point where Gallen initially had trouble finding sparring partners for their fight.
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