Boxing: Paul Gallen and Sonny Bill Williams meet in the ring, but does it matter if it doesn't mean anything?

By Simon Smale, ABC News

Opinion: Instances of two former footy players in their 40s punching on is rarely cause for celebration.

Even if the fight in question is covered by the thin veneer of respectability provided by a boxing ring and gloves, there is still little to be pleased about.

Footballers-turned-boxers Paul Gallen and Sonny Bill Williams will lace up the gloves and meet in a heavyweight bout in Sydney's Olympic Park on Wednesday.

The two ex-NRL forwards will fight over eight two-minute rounds and - hopefully - put an end to one of the least dignified feuds in Australian sport.

Aside from settling their post-football career rivalry, it's hard to know what is at stake in this bout. Perhaps pride? Most certainly ego. Financial incentives? That goes without saying.

Perhaps it doesn't need to be anything more than that.

As boxing continues to evolve and find its way in an era where the long-term impacts of repeated head knocks are becoming all the more apparent and audience tastes are changing from the sport's mid-century heyday, non-title fights are becoming more and more prevalent.

Whether it's Jake Paul selling out massive arenas stateside, or Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr meeting at a catchweight despite their vast size differential to satisfy Britain's lust for another instalment of the legendary battles between their respective fathers, boxing is changing.

And to those publicising the fights, that doesn't matter.

If you've watched any sporting event covered by Channel Nine over the last couple of weeks, you'd know this fight is taking place.

Particularly jarring was the interview that took place in the aftermath of Queensland's State of Origin Game III victory over New South Wales a week ago, when viewers were subject to the insalubrious exhibition of a pitch-side Gallen and Williams via video link bellowing insults over each other.

Of course, Nine has to promote its own content and doing so to its target audience of football fans is entirely sensible.

It's not the act of promotion that's the issue here. It's what's being sold.

The juxtaposition between analysis of a genuine sporting triumph and promoting this contest between two aged warriors felt very off.

But this fight is grabbing attention across the networks - Fox Sport mentions it when publicising Sunday's rematch between Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu.

"Forget the sideshow," Matt Nable, another footy player who has embraced a new performative career now his playing days are done, drawls.

"This ain't two old footy players cashing cheques long after their careers ended," he continues - a puzzling and somewhat hypocritical dig given the success the network enjoyed when Gallen was beating up his fellow NRL retirees on its own pay-per-view channel over the years.

This is not to criticise the two men for their willingness to get into the ring. Anyone with the courage to step inside the squared circle, arguably the least forgiving arena in all of sport, deserves admiration and respect - to a point.

Neither Gallen nor Williams come into this as desperate wannabes, misguidedly believing themselves capable of dancing on the canvas having shadow-boxed in front of the bathroom mirror and watched the Rocky movies a couple of times.

Gallen has fought 18 times in his ring career for a record of 15-2-1 (8KOs).

Admittedly, there has been a heady whiff of farce about some of those opponents, but Gallen has never once taken anyone lightly, bringing the same determination and professionalism to the ring that characterised his professional football career.

And in amongst the Darcy Lussicks, Ben Hannants and Justin Hodges - who he inexplicably fought twice - on his resume, he has also stood up against some of Australia's best.

Justis Huni and Kris Terzievski both may have beaten Gallen in their Australian heavyweight title bouts, but Gallen did better than most have against genuine prospects.

And even while Gallen was fighting other ex-footballers, he used the interest generated by him fighting to help promote other Australian fighters and give them sizeable paydays.

Boxers like Tim and Nikita Tszyu, Harry Garside and Huni all benefited from Gallen's profile with inflated purses and prize money on pay-per-views across the country.

This fight card sees recognised fighters David Nyika and Terzievski fight, as well as young prospects Alex Leapai Jnr and Rahim Mundine, who will all doubtless benefit from the exposure a Gallen fight will bring.

For that alone, Gallen deserves an awful lot of credit - although his ring career has earned him AU$25 million to date, according to the man himself, so he has been well rewarded.

Williams too has pedigree of sorts in the ring. His grandfather, Bill Woolsey, was a New Zealand heavyweight champion and Williams emulated him by claiming that same title in a knockout victory over Clarence Tillman in 2012.

That was Williams's fifth pro fight and he followed that up with wins against veterans Frans Botha and Chauncy Welliver before stepping away from the ring between 2015 and 2021.

When Williams returned to boxing, he fought Waikato Falefehi and Barry Hall for wins, before a knockout defeat against Mark Hunt, his first in the ring, to leave the New Zealand dual-code international with a pro record of 9-1 (4KOs).

So, if these are two professional boxers getting in the ring, having talked about the fight taking place desperately for years, what's the problem?

Their age doesn't help. Paul Gallen will be 44 years old in under a month. Sonny Bill Williams is 40.

Both men have been out of the ring for two-and-a-half-years.

Is that even an obstacle? Co-headliner in Tszyu's fight on the weekend, Manny Pacquiao, is 46, hasn't fought anyone since 2021 and hasn't won a fight since 2019 - he is meeting Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title on Sunday in Las Vegas.

If that makes you feel uneasy, it probably should. Studies show that the impacts of concussions linger for longer and are more severe as people age.

Other impacts of aging - reduced reaction time, increasing fatigue and muscle weakness - all combine to make the ring even more dangerous as you get older than it is for younger fighters.

Mike Tyson's hideous parody of a return to the ring aged 58 against Jake Paul should be a lesson to us all of the dangers of going on too long.

OK, so if the age thing isn't an issue, is it because these two are not "the best" boxers in the traditional sense - Williams admitted as much at the press conference on Monday - but celebrities risking their health for a suggested AU$1 million payday?

That might be it, just as people have issues with YouTuber Paul and his improbable quest for a world title shot.

Boxing fans can hardly clutch at their pearls if that is the issue.

Both Gallen and Paul, love or loathe them, have contributed and continue to contribute to the development of the sport by adding casual eyeballs to their events - Paul promotes Amanda Serrano through his promotion company and allows the seven-weight world champion from Puerto Rico to actually earn something approaching a decent wage from the sport.

Perhaps it is the nauseating back and forth that has been seemingly going on for years - all around them maybe or maybe not meeting in a ring.

Maybe, with no clear villain or outright good guy to root for or against, fans are simply conflicted.

Let's not forget that, despite being rival players on the pitch several times over the years in the NRL and in international rugby league, there was never any genuine beef between them as players.

Perhaps if there had been, we'd have been spared this unedifying spectacle.

So, why are they fighting in the first place?

Tickets at the Arena in Homebush range from AU$1495 to AU$49. The pay-per-view on Stan Sport is AU$70.

As of Tuesday, the tickets are not sold out but they have been selling.

For contrast, the Tszyu vs Fundora world title rematch on Sunday (AEDT) will set fight fans back AU$69.95 on Main Event - a fight that, from a sporting context, means something.

By that, fight fans will tell you it means a world title, a career-defining moment for Tszyu and Fundora both. A chance for them to add their names to the list of legends in their sport.

What, then, does the Gallen-Williams fight mean? Perhaps a bigger question is, does it need to mean anything?

"I've never been concerned about legacy," Gallen said. "I'm trained to fight. I've been here for one reason. To have a go."

The proof will be in how many people tune in to watch it.

But whether people do or don't, perhaps the only error is trying to read anything more into this bout than it being a chance for two middle-aged men to publicly air their grievances and make a sack full of cash at the same time.

-ABC