{"id":10436,"date":"2020-12-16T19:30:16","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T20:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=10436"},"modified":"2020-12-17T00:01:18","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T00:01:18","slug":"gallens-emotional-tribute-to-stricken-mate-nrl-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=10436","title":{"rendered":"Gallen's emotional tribute to stricken mate, NRL great"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Gallen's almighty tough streak was on display as the NRL great absorbed a series of monster Mark Hunt punches on his way to defeating the MMA legend in the Sydney Super Fight on Wednesday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the softer side of the former NSW Blues and Cronulla Sharks captain shone through as he stood in the Bankwest Stadium ring for his post-fight interview.<\/p>\n

Gallen took the opportunity to pay tribute to two men battling motor neurone disease, a neurodegenerative condition that leads to sufferers not being able to move, speak, breathe and swallow in an average timeframe of just over two years.<\/p>\n

The hardman first gave a shout-out to close mate Con Ange, who's widely known as Sydney's 'Porn King' because he owns a host of adult retail stores.<\/p>\n

The 60-year-old was diagnosed with MND in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That led Gallen to speak about a man he faced in the NRL and State of Origin arenas – Brisbane, North Queensland, Parramatta and Maroons great Carl Webb – who was diagnosed with the fatal disease in March.<\/p>\n

"I just want to give respect to Queensland for a second," Gallen said.<\/p>\n

"A good friend of mine here has motor neurone disease, Con Ange, and he's suffering from it at the moment.<\/p>\n

"There's a guy in Queensland, Carl Webb, absolute warrior – he's starting a foundation next year. I'm going to donate my gloves from this fight, and my shorts, and hopefully raise some money for your foundation, Carl.<\/p>\n

"All the best with it."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Webb actually launched the Carl Webb Foundation in November, in an effort to raise money and awareness for those battling MND.<\/p>\n

The 39-year-old has received support from MND Queensland and the MND and Me Foundation.<\/p>\n

Gallen's donation of boxing gear is sure to attract a huge sum of money when auctioned off.<\/p>\n

Former Essendon Bomber and long-time AFL coach Neale Daniher is another Australian sports figure faced with the awful disease.<\/p>\n

The former Melbourne Demons coach was diagnosed with MND in 2013 and has since done a phenomenal amount of work to raise money and awareness in the fight against the disease.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Gallen's almighty tough streak was on display as the NRL great absorbed a series of monster Mark Hunt punches on his way to defeating […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10436"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10438,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10436\/revisions\/10438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}