{"id":86470,"date":"2021-06-16T22:35:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T22:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=86470"},"modified":"2021-06-17T06:09:17","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T06:09:17","slug":"gallen-urged-to-retire-after-brutal-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=86470","title":{"rendered":"Gallen urged to retire after brutal loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Gallen has been urged to decline a rematch, or even retire from boxing, after a damaging TKO loss to Justis Huni<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gallen (11-1-1, 6 KOs) was waved-off by referee John Cauchi in the 10th and final round of his Australian heavyweight title fight against Huni (5-0, 4 KOs), following a knockdown. It was Gallen's first defeat.<\/p>\n

The NRL great was remarkably courageous against Huni but well-beaten, later revealing that he felt like he'd broken a rib in only the second round<\/a>. Gallen, 39, has a rematch clause, which he could exercise after Huni fights at the Olympics, but Australian boxing great Jeff Fenech urged him to decline.<\/p>\n

"There is a rematch clause but I hope Gallen doesn't want it," Fenech said on Main Event's fight commentary.<\/p>\n

"He doesn't need this again, you can have all the money in the world but you don't need this."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fellow Australian boxing great Barry Michael also urged against a rematch and said that Gallen should retire. Michael said that Gallen had proven himself and could leave boxing with pride.<\/p>\n

"Personally, I don't want to see Gal take rematches and stuff like that," Michael said on Main Event.<\/p>\n

"He's made a real good quid, he's proved so many things to himself and a lot of other people. A great achievement to go into the last minute of the 10th round. Incredible."<\/p>\n

Gallen will make more than $1 million from his fight against Huni. He reportedly got an 85 per cent purse split and his final figure will be determined by pay-per-view sales revenue. He hinted that he might be keen to try again.<\/p>\n

"I'm not against it," Gallen said in the ring post-fight.<\/p>\n

"I think I had a really good preparation leading into Mark Hunt and Lucas Browne and this was a short one. I was as fit as I've ever been going into this fight – but trying to get sparring to prepare for guys like that it's pretty hard.<\/p>\n

"I did get a few good guys and I was as prepared as I could have been but that was a pretty good challenge and that's where I want to be as an athlete really pushing myself as hard as I can against a champion.<\/p>\n

"I did that tonight and we'll weigh it up in the future what's going to happen"<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/p>\n

Main Event panellist Paul Kent said that Gallen was "too brave for his own good" and should give boxing away altogether. It was pointed out the Gallen needs major shoulder surgery, for which he has a finite window post-football.<\/p>\n

"The fact is, I wouldn't like to see him fight anymore. I don't think he can go any higher than where he went tonight," Kent said.<\/p>\n

"He certainly doesn't want any better opponents than what Justis Huni gave him tonight.<\/p>\n

"He can go back and he can fight the Barry Halls of the world again and have the rematches, there's always the talk about fighting Sonny Bill Williams – which is out on the horizon.<\/p>\n

"But I think tonight he got his pay day. I would like, for his own welfare, I think it's time to say, 'You know what, I'm 39 years old. I'm going to go and have my shoulder operation and I'm going to go off into retirement and enjoy spending my money'.<\/p>\n

"And anybody who knows Gal knows he won't spend it all."<\/p>\n

Michael added: "I agree with you totally. Absolutely totally. You've got nothing to prove, that was an incredible effort tonight against a far more skillful, much bigger guy that's going to the Olympics and is a big chance to bring us a gold medal. Incredible."<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Huni's promoter Dean Lonergan said that Gallen was promotional gold for the rising heavyweight phenom. He said that he'd be happy to do the fight several times if Gallen was game.<\/p>\n

"He loves the money – he's a prize fighter," Lonergan said.<\/p>\n

"He was thoroughly outclassed today and he's tough as all heck and if we do this again, the beating is going to be worse.<\/p>\n

"But it's up to him and if he wants to do it, we'll take it for the simple fact that we can't get this publicity anywhere else and for us to turn Justis Huni into a pay-per-view star and that's the business that we're in, we need media.<\/p>\n

"Gallen brings more media to the table than anyone else with the exception of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n

"Gallen is an amazing promoter of fights, he knows how to sell this stuff and he's the best I've ever worked with.<\/p>\n

"To be honest, I would nominate to fight him three-four-five times, but I know Rocki [Huni, Justis' trainer and father] at best will do it once more."<\/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<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Gallen has been urged to decline a rematch, or even retire from boxing, after a damaging TKO loss to Justis Huni. Gallen (11-1-1, 6 […]<\/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\/86470"}],"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=86470"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86472,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86470\/revisions\/86472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}