that was obviously just an off the cuff coloquialism not meant to have any real meaning...
In case you haven't noticed, leaders dont normally engage in wrestling, fist-fighting and general physical rough-stuff...
Tony Abbott seems to have handled Putin well as far as I saw...
When you have a powerful leader of a nuclear armed country such as Russia, who was once and probably still is a KGB agent, better to establish a rapport based on common grounds and mutual respect rather than as lapdog demands, be yapping and nipping at his heels like some demented lapdog...
Or we can send the yapping, bellowing lapdog off to Russia to do our negotiations for us while we all retreat to nuclear fallout shelters and prepare for the inevitable...
