At a press conference that was a decade in the making, Paul Gallen’s decision not to attend it wasn’t the biggest controversy.
The lead-up to an anticipated fight is akin to that of an election: so many wasted words when all everybody cares about is the result. On this occasion, Sonny Bill Williams, left alone with the microphone, went to a place we didn’t expect this campaign to go – the darkest recesses of Paul Gallen’s past.
The previous night, Gallen was one of three new inductees into the NSWRL hall of fame, toasted by 450 guests during a swanky shindig at The Star. On Tuesday morning, when the former Blues captain wasn’t there to defend himself, Williams labelled him a drug cheat.
“I think he must have got wind that the drug testers were going to be here today,” Williams said of the Gallen no show.
Yep, he went there.
It was a not-so-subtle reference to Gallen, who along with a number of his Sharks teammates accepted backdated 12-month doping bans in 2014 after they plead guilty to unwittingly taking banned substances, which were administered as part of a program operated by the club.
Sonny Bill Williams had plenty to say on Tuesday.Credit: Thomas Wielecki
It was dubbed the “blackest day in Australian sport.” And Gallen was the face of it.
When he came off stage moments later for a separate interview, Williams doubled down.
“I’m going into the ring with someone who has done that before,” he said.
This was straight out of the Gallen playbook. For all the notoriety Williams has earned while criss-crossing between the codes, none of it is the result of trash talk. It was expected that Gallen would have to shoulder the responsibility for promoting their fight, one first mooted when both were in the prime of their footballing careers.
And yet, at what was meant to be their first face-off, Gallen was nowhere to be found, and the verbal sparring was left to the normally mild-mannered Williams. Without even mentioning “ASADA” or “peptides” or “Stephen Dank″, Williams opened up old wounds that may never heal.
Whether SBW did so due to genuine doping concerns, or to simply land an early psychological blow, remains unclear. Either way, his team asked for both fighters to undergo mandatory drug testing and claimed the other side didn’t agree.
Sonny Bill Williams at the announcement of his fight with Paul Gallen.Credit: Thomas Wielecki
“The contract that I saw, there was no drug testing,” Williams said. “If the people who are putting this fight on have any decency about them, there would be drug testing.”
While Gallen did not attend the press conference, he was only too happy to respond later.
“At the end of the day, what happened at Cronulla was a terrible thing – no one is more angry about it than I am,” he said. “Here we are 14 years later and I’m still dealing with it, while the bloke who was responsible is allowed to live his life like nothing happened.
“My entire team was found to be duped and doped, that was the wording put out by the government.
“And he [Williams] wants to throw me under the bus … it’s the pot calling the kettle black.
“He admitted to going on four-day benders, taking drugs. A doctor told him he had that many drugs in his system he should be dead.
“What’s worse? Something that was given to someone by their club, that wasn’t on any banned list at the time, or someone who took illegal drugs.”
Williams wrote in his book, Sonny Bill Williams: You Can’t Stop the Sun from Shining, about going on benders early in his NRL career, and that a doctor had once told him he “had so many drugs in my system I could have died”.
Gallen added that he had told the promoters that he was comfortable being drug tested for the fight.
Gallen’s contribution to the actual press conference came via a message he had recorded on Instagram. In it, he claimed that the fight was taking place on Williams’ terms, including the former All Black’s insistence it be held over eight two-minute rounds.
“Hey guys, right about now I’m supposed to be at the press conference for me versus Sonny Bill Williams, but clearly I’m not,″ Gallen posted.
“This whole negotiation process has been about Sonny, so I thought I would leave it that way …
“Everything is always about Sonny. Sonny gets what Sonny wants.
“I didn’t want to steal his thunder today. Sonny can go and say whatever he wants to say. He’s a big enough star to carry this fight all on his own … I’m just going to turn up on the night and give it a good, old crack.
“I hope you feel like I’ve wasted your time mate, because I feel like I’ve wasted my time the last 10 years. But finally you’ve built up the courage to jump in the ring with me, July 16, we’ll get it done … I’ll give you some attention very soon.
“I hope you’re training hard. While I’m past my best, everyone knows that I’ve still got enough left to beat you.”
The fight will take place at Qudos Bank Arena on July 16 and will be shown live and exclusively on Stan pay-per-view. A stacked undercard will belatedly include, after two false starts, a showdown between former UFC star Tyson Pedro and Kris Terzievski, the latter one of only two professional boxers that have defeated Gallen.
Gallen did not turn up to Liberty Hall at Moore Park’s Entertainment Quarter for Tuesday’s official fight launch. Did Williams have concerns that he wouldn’t turn up on fight night?
“Nah,” Williams said. “He definitely wants his pay cheque.”
