Paul Gallen is predicting a knockout win over a mouthy opponent, as he prepares for the shortest turnaround of his boxing career.
The Cronulla, NSW and Kangaroos rugby league forward improved his professional boxing record to 6-0 on Friday, with a unanimous three-round points victory over fellow NRL star Junior Paulo, in Sydney.
Fighting for the first time in over 10 months after leading Cronulla to a maiden NRL premiership, Gallen took some big shots in the second of the three rounds against a much heavier and taller fighter.
But as he always seems to do after getting hit, Gallen charged back in and dominated the rest of the bout.
He has little time to savour the victory, with a fight scheduled against Ryan Carr at the Sharks home ground on December 23.
Gallen is confident he can maintain the same tempo over double the distance against Carr, though he doesn't expect the fight to go six rounds.
Carr, who has a 2-0 record, irked Gallen with some comments in a News Corp article, in which he described Cronulla as "a bit of a bogan suburb" and Gallen as "their head bogan."
"Ryan Carr mouthed off last week," Gallen said.
"I'm going to be able to keep that pace (from Friday night) up for six rounds
"I'm going to knock him out for all of Cronulla.
"Everyone in the Shire get down there and watch me put him to shame."
While Gallen has knocked off the ring rust, Carr hasn't fought since last December.
Boxing doesn't agree with everyone and Gallen's former Sharks teammate Todd Carney might just be a case of one and done after his fight with fellow former NRL star Chris Sandow ended in a draw.
"It's not for me boxing, that's for sure," Carney said.
