Nelson Asofa-Solomona needed less than a round to put Paul Gallen on the canvas in Sydney on Friday. Then he needed a few seconds more to hop over the ropes and throw a punch at somebody in the crowd. Now he’s apologizing for the second part, and he says a racial taunt set him off.
Bloody Elbow reported that right after the knockout, Asofa-Solomona jumped out of the ring and into the stands, threw a punch, and climbed back in for the official decision. The FOX Sports broadcast didn’t make clear what had happened. Asofa-Solomona cleared it up afterward, saying he believed he’d been targeted with a racial slur.
He told the Australian Associated Press: “I want to apologise to everyone for that. I just got in the middle of the heat of the moment.” He added, “I hope you guys can understand. There’s been a big build up, and I should not behave like that. I’m sorry.”
In a later interview he got more specific about what he saw. “Someone was doing an ape gesture,” he said. “I stood on the ropes and it looked like someone threw something at me.” He doubled down on both halves of it, too: “If I had my time back, I would, because that’s not on. But what that guy did to me, in terms of that gesture, is not on either.” His summary of his state of mind was three words long. “I’d just seen red.”
The fight itself
This was two rugby league guys trading the pitch for the ring, and on paper the experience edge belonged to Gallen. He came in with 19 pro boxing bouts. Asofa-Solomona had three. The tale of the tape told a different story, and it told it loudly. Asofa-Solomona stands 6’7 and weighed in north of 303 pounds. Gallen is 5’10 and came in just under 230. That’s a 73-pound gap, which in boxing terms is roughly a cruiserweight getting matched with a refrigerator that has a jab.
It played out the way the scale said it would. Gallen got knocked out viciously in Round 1 and stayed down on the canvas for minutes before he needed help. Bloody Elbow noted that Asofa-Solomona looked sharper than a guy with four pro fights has any right to look, so the win was legit even if the matchup was lopsided. Bloody Elbow’s report didn’t mention any sanction, any police involvement, or a next opponent for either man.
My take
An ape gesture aimed at a Pasifika athlete is about as ugly as a crowd gets, and whoever did it should be identified and banned from every venue in New South Wales. I’ll say that first and loudest. I also can’t co-sign leaving the ring to swing on a paying customer, because the next time it’s the wrong guy in the wrong seat and a great night turns into a court date. Asofa-Solomona seems to get that, since he apologized without walking back his anger at the taunt, which is about the most honest version of sorry you’ll get from a 300-pound man ten seconds after a knockout. What I want to see now is the promoter pulling the arena footage and naming the guy who made the gesture, because so far the only person who has publicly owned anything from Friday night is the fighter.
