Living Under Muhammad Ali’s Shadow... | Nico Ali Walsh | DSH #2079

**Nico Ali Walsh** (0:00)
His goal was to be fighting with no emotion, but he did fight with anger. His anger was so passionate, that got him through his entire career. I feel like if Mike Tyson would have fought with no emotion at all, he would have never lost. The fact that I haven't had one nosebleed from a punch in a fight is crazy.

**Sean Kelly** (0:26)
All right guys, got Nico on the paw today. A professional boxer, you might have heard of this man before. Thanks for coming, man.

**Nico Ali Walsh** (0:32)
Of course, thank you for having me.

**Sean Kelly** (0:33)
You busy training right now?

**Nico Ali Walsh** (0:35)
Yeah, I'm just waiting on a fight date and staying in shape.

**Sean Kelly** (0:40)
Yeah, is that the toughest period for you, that kind of in-between phase where you kind of don't know what's next?

**Nico Ali Walsh** (0:45)
It's awful. It's awful because that's where discipline comes in because I've got to constantly stay in the gym with guys who have fights coming up. I'm constantly in camp, but it's not my camp. It's not for something that I have to look forward to. It's just staying in shape just to be disciplined.

**Sean Kelly** (1:04)
Yeah, because once you know your opponent, you can kind of game plan.

**Nico Ali Walsh** (1:07)
Oh, it's easy. Once you have a fight date, once you have a face to the name or a date in mind, you have a goal, something that you can go towards. But right now, I'm just going.

**Sean Kelly** (1:19)
Right.

**Nico Ali Walsh** (1:20)
But it'll come up. Like, you know, sometimes dates just pop up randomly, and you only have like five weeks, six weeks' notice, which seems like a long time. But for me, I like to prepare.

**Sean Kelly** (1:32)
Wow, I didn't know that. I kind of assumed with all your fights, you kind of got to plan them pretty well. Oh, yeah.

**Nico Ali Walsh** (1:37)
Yeah, no, I got every single one of my fights I've had to plan. I've known about the fight at least 10 weeks.

**Sean Kelly** (1:45)
So 10 weeks. Which is a long time. Okay. Well, I should get better and more known that sometimes there's fights on short.

**Nico Ali Walsh** (1:50)
Yeah, stuff happens. I've had several opponents drop out, last minute replacements. So you got to be ready. You got to be on your toes no matter what.

**Sean Kelly** (1:59)
So drop out because of injuries or just?

**Nico Ali Walsh** (2:02)
That's what everyone says. I don't know if it says injuries, but it's whatever reason they're out. You know, that I could drop out of my next fight. If I was scared to fight, I could just drop out and say it was something like I sprained my ankle or something. You know, there's no...

**Sean Kelly** (2:18)
Oh, it's that easy?

**Nico Ali Walsh** (2:19)
Yeah.

**Sean Kelly** (2:19)
Do you think there should be some check on that? Like a physical or?

**Nico Ali Walsh** (2:24)
Yeah, I mean, it would be tough. First, for someone fighting at my level, it's not as important as the title level. When it comes to the title fights where you're the main event and you've got you're selling out crowds and the opponent says I sprained this or I did whatever, then you got to cancel the fight and then you got to send back all the tickets that you already sold, that's when there should be extra stuff. But for me, I just find another opponent. It's just more annoying than anything.

**Sean Kelly** (2:55)
Yeah, do you feel the additional pressure now that you're the main card at some of these fights?

**Nico Ali Walsh** (3:00)
Yeah, no, I've been on the main card for a lot of my fights. And I didn't understand, I got thrown into that.
With top rank, I have more pro fights now than I had amateur. And for like my, I think it was my second or third fight, I was on the main card. And it's just, it's weird. I didn't know what that meant when I was turning pro. But now I understand that, wow, like I was on the main card third or two fights in or whatever like that.

**Sean Kelly** (3:34)
So that's early.

**Nico Ali Walsh** (3:35)
Yeah, it's very early.

**Sean Kelly** (3:36)
So you got put in the starlight, stardom right?

**Nico Ali Walsh** (3:38)
Yeah, but now I'm used to it. Now that I have what, like 14 fights, something like that, I'm used to it now.

**Sean Kelly** (3:44)
So you got 14 pro fights. How many amateur fights do you have? Oh, because when I looked up your record, it didn't mention the amateur.