Sydney Morning Herald

Garth Wood celebrates his victory over Kariz Kariuki. Photo: Craig Golding/Getty Images

A RUGBY league rivalry stretching 80 years between the St George Dragons and South Sydney Rabbitohs will manifest itself in the ring when Anthony Mundine faces Garth Wood, who won a furiously paced finale of The Contender series last night.

Wood defeated Kariz Kariuki via a controversial split points decision, 68-66, 68-65, 66-68 to set up a showdown with Mundine. A former Souths winger, Wood's emergence as the reality television tournament winner sets up a ready-made promotional platform in the bout against former Dragons five-eighth Mundine.

Wood used his trademark tactic of pushing his opponent to the ropes before unloading bombs. He dominated the opening two rounds with relentless hooks and rocked Kariuki on two occasions. Kariuki fought back in the third and landed cleaner shots in the final two of seven rounds as Wood clinched repeatedly, although judges Bernie McMahon and Trevor Christian felt he had the better of the fight.

It is a remarkable rise for Wood, who was fighting just his eighth professional bout and moves to 7-1.

''I can take on the world,'' Wood said. ''I'm Wood, I'm good, and I'm here to stay.''

Kariuki complained of the constant holding but was valiant in defeat. ''That's boxing, you win some, you lose some,'' said Kariuki, now 21-7-2. ''He was messy, he did hold me a lot, I didn't really get a chance to fight.''

Meanwhile, bitter feelings between Junior Talipeau and Nader Hamdan spilled over after their highly anticipated clash was stopped in just 63 seconds following a head clash that left Hamdan sporting a horrific cut above his eye.

Both men were clear on one thing; there must be a rematch to settle differences for good. Talipeau had floored Hamdan with a monster right hand within 30 seconds of the first bell, and believed he would have finished the contest within the three minutes.

Instead, the pair clashed heads and Hamdan was left gushing blood, forcing the ringside doctor to halt the fight. Hamdan had a four centimetre cut on his right eyebrow that went through to the bone and required a hospital visit to stitch the injury.

Talipeau has now scrapped plans to fight Sam Soliman later in the year for another chance to finish Hamdan's career.

''I felt the bump, you can see it on my head, I blame Nader for that because he was desperate, he was hurt and he just came flying in - what could I do?'' said Talipeau.

''He came rushing in with his head and mine hit him in the face. I'm disappointed in the stoppage, I thought I would have stopped him in the first round anyway. I had him hurt, I had him caught. As I said, I was going to clean him up with the WD40. Next time I'll take care of that.''

Asked if he was hurt from the knockdown punch, Hamdan said: ''No, no, it was just a wake-up call. I've been dropped a lot of times, I always get up and get on with the fight. I got a wake-up call pretty early, got dropped on my backside, I started getting behind my jab and I felt him charging at me and I felt our heads collide pretty heavily. Before I knew there was blood gushing and I all I could see was red.

"The doctor stopped it, he said the cut was too deep, he could see the bone. The ref wasn't sure whether it was a punch or headbutt until he saw the replay on the big screen, which showed clearly it was a headbutt. I hope it wasn't intentional, I don't think it was. We're definitely going to a rematch.''

Talipeau, whose next fight is in Japan against Koji Soto in March, hopes to fight Hamdan on the undercard of Mundine's proposed rematch with Daniel Geale.

''My plan was to go out there and bully him in the first round, take it to him so he could feel my power straight up,'' Talipeau said. ''I didn't think he would drop straight away from the first right hand I threw. This is the strongest I've ever felt.''