Aaron McKenna is kept apart from fellow IBF world-title challenger Etinosa Oliha by Zuffa Boxing chief Dana White at Friday's weigh-in. Ben Brady/INPHO
AnalysisCollision Course
Co-headliners Aaron McKenna and Callum Walsh face tricky obstacles on road to Irish super-fight
Monaghan’s McKenna fights for the IBF middleweight world title on Saturday, while Walsh faces a career-biggest test.
THERE’S A LICK of Hollywood to each of their stories. Indeed, until this week in Dublin, Tinseltown was where they last crossed paths.
The long-time Monaghan prodigy who was once visited by Kendrick Lamar in his dressing room pre-fight and stopped for a ringside selfie with Cindy Crawford has swapped Los Angeles for the gym in the back garden of his family home.
The bolt-from-the-blue prospect who packed in his day job hauling lobster pots in Cork Harbour and sneaked into California from Mexico during Covid lockdown to doorstep Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach for a spot of training.
It was in Roach’s Wild Card gym, beneath the Hollywood hills, where Smithborough’s Aaron McKenna and Cobh’s Callum Walsh would have last shaken hands five or six years ago, their respective work under Roach overlapping briefly.
McKenna, already a developing professional, headed back to Ireland upon the conclusion of his contract with Golden Boy Promotions towards the end of 2021, seeking significant fights closer to home. He has since trained under his father, Fergal, in the family’s purpose-built boxing gym, complete with a full-sized, refurbished ring that once saw fellow Monaghan boxing great Barry McGuigan, as well as Rinty Monaghan, grace its canvas.
Middleweight world-title challenger Aaron McKenna of Monaghan. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
Walsh, still an amateur, initially chanced his arm with the great Roach purely to prepare for the 2021 Irish Elites. He arrived on a Wednesday, however – sparring day at the Wild Card. Roach welcomed him in only on the provision that Walsh jump in the ring immediately to prove he could hack it in an elite training environment.
In a later interview with The 42, Roach recalled his inner monologue as he first observed Walsh, barely 20, spar one of his brightest talents: “‘There aren’t too many guys in my gym who are going to give him trouble.’”
“A good fighter comes through the door, the whole gym pays attention,” Roach added. “And that’s what happened with Callum.”
Walsh parked his amateur aspirations and turned professional under Tom Loeffler, the Californian promoter who brought the Klitschko brothers and Gennady Golovkin to the masses. He soon afterwards piqued the interest of UFC president Dana White, a mutual friend of both Loeffler and Roach who, years before launching his Zuffa Boxing project, jumped on board as Walsh’s sponsor and unofficial co-promoter, platforming his fights on the UFC Fight Pass streaming service.
Walsh’s association with the UFC led to his relationship with MMA star Tabatha ‘Baby Shark’ Ricci, with whom he now owns a bustling farm, and his being championed at every turn by White has contributed in no small part to his becoming the second-most-followed Irish boxer on social media behind Katie Taylor.
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Dana White converses with Cork protégé Callum Walsh at Friday's weigh-in. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
Most importantly, Walsh’s fists have done enough talking to earn him a professional record of 16-0 (11KOs) after four and a half years in the professional boxing ring. He last year parted ways with Roach, with whom he retains a strong friendship, and now trains under Roach’s long-time assistant, Marvin Somodio, at Manny Pacquiao’s Pacquiao Prime Boxing Gym, just off Hollywood Boulevard.
Back across the Atlantic, Aaron McKenna [20-0, 10KOs], who turned professional as a teenager four years before Walsh, has found fights more difficult to come by in recent years, with various promotional and contractual complications leaving him on ice for lengthy spells. McKenna has still banked at least one career-furthering victory in each of the last three years, however.
‘The Silencer’ defeated recent world-title challenger Uisma Lima via unanimous decision in a barnburner live on Sky Sports in June 2023. He stopped the previously unbeaten Jeovanny Estela in the quarter-final of a $1 million tournament in July 2024, only for Matchroom’s revamped Prizefighter competition to fall apart at the seams before the semis. Owing him one, Eddie Hearn and co. handed McKenna a breakout opportunity before the eyes of a huge international audience. The Monaghan man took it with aplomb, dominating former light-middleweight world champion Liam Smith in what had been considered a 50-50 scrap on the undercard of Chris Eubank-Conor Benn I at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in April of last year.
McKenna’s world-class performance, combined with his teaming up with US-based manager Mike Borao (who also co-manages American star Teofimo Lopez), led to his leaping towards the top of the queue to challenge IBF middleweight world champion Janibek Alimkhanuly.
However, the Kazakh was stripped of his belt earlier this year after failing a drug test. Consequently, McKenna, who is now promoted by Dana White’s Zuffa, and the next-best-positioned contender, Italy’s Etinosa Oliha [22-0, 10KOs], will compete for the vacant world-title belt in Dublin, live on Sky Sports.
Remarkably, victory for McKenna will mean he joins only Andy Lee, Steve Collins and the first-ever world champion in the division, Nonpareil Jack Dempsey, on the short list of Irish-born middleweights to claim global honours. More noteworthy still is that McKenna’s maiden world-title opportunity will mark his first professional bout on Irish soil.
“It’s something I’ve been dreaming of since I started boxing at six years old,” McKenna said. “To finally get a fight for the world title and for it to be in Ireland makes it extra special.
“I have goosebumps just thinking about fighting in there with that Irish atmosphere. I’ve been boxing for 20 years, and it’s all going to come down to this night.”
Oliha, meanwhile, a qualified electrician and a year McKenna’s senior at 28, will become Italy’s first world champion at any weight for 10 years should he stun the home crowd in Dublin and complete his own fairytale.
“The atmosphere is not going to bother me because in the ring, it’s going to be just me and him,” said the Turin native. “I don’t think he can match my work-rate; I’m an all-rounder boxer, so anything he brings will not be new to me.
“I will win this fight, and I will hurt him.”
McKenna, the more versatile and complete technical boxer, is favoured by the oddsmakers to overcome the polished Oliha, whose body attack will need to be respected. It’s been only a week, after all, since an unfancied visitor ripped up the script in a 3Arena main event.
Watching on will surely be Callum Walsh, who, a fight before McKenna-Oliha, will take on a career-toughest opponent in former European middleweight champion Tyler Denny.
The Englishman’s modest-looking 24-4-3 (1KO) record belies his threat on Saturday night: Denny has in recent years sullied the unbeaten records of British- and European-title-level opponents in Bradley Rea, Brad Pauls and, with the EBU continental belt on the line in 2024, the previously fancied Felix Cash, and he gave a fine account of himself in a points defeat by the also-undefeated George Liddard back in March.
Denny, a decade Walsh’s senior at 35, has also been a fully fledged middleweight for the entirety of his 11-year professional career, whereas Walsh is a newcomer to the division — and not necessarily by choice.
Walsh’s promoters, Zuffa Boxing, don’t recognise light-middleweight, the division in which the Cork southpaw has campaigned since turning professional in 2021. Walsh has fought just once since making the consequently obligatory jump from 154 pounds to 160, and he didn’t appear to carry with him his typical power as he earned a wide points victory over Mexican puncher Carlos Ocampo [previously 38-3, 26KOs] back in January. Furthermore, Walsh’s fleshier-than-usual body composition at Friday’s weigh-in — he’s still in great nick, mind — would suggest he’s just not yet physically a middleweight despite tipping the scales slightly heavier than Denny bang on the 160-pound limit.
Callum Walsh at Friday's weigh-in. Ben Brady / INPHO
Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
Of Denny’s four career defeats, only Andy Lee’s current super-middleweight world titleist Hamzah Sheeraz has flattened the man from England’s West Midlands. For Walsh to do so would certainly reintegrate him with fine company, but it’s equally possible that this becomes a tricky fight for the naturally smaller Walsh if his early bombs don’t leave a dent in Denny.
A statement victory for Walsh, however, would position him to challenge the winner of McKenna-Oliha for the IBF world title in the not-too-distant future. Indeed, that’s surely Zuffa’s intention in putting Ireland’s two highest-ranked middleweights in the top two slots of Saturday night’s bill at the 3Arena.
Walsh has previously stated a disinterest in facing a compatriot unless a tangible carrot is being dangled between them. His preference is for Irish boxers to track mud on the carpets of others rather than collide in the narrow corridor. But he is certainly open to a world-title shot against McKenna, for whom he has full respect but with whom he has no meaningful relationship.
A prospective world-title showdown between McKenna and Walsh would be only the second-ever all-Irish clash for global honours, following Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan’s rematch for the IBF welterweight world title at Windsor Park 10 months ago.
Victory for Walsh against Denny, though, is far from a given, and McKenna will equally require something near his best if he is to join Katie Taylor and Anthony Cacace as a reigning Irish world champion.
Coverage of the bill, which also includes Joe Ward’s return to the professional ring after a two-year absence among other bouts with Irish interest, will begin at 7pm on Sky Sports Action, and on Sky Sports Main Event from 8pm.
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Co-headliners Aaron McKenna and Callum Walsh face tricky obstacles on road to Irish super-fight
THERE’S A LICK of Hollywood to each of their stories. Indeed, until this week in Dublin, Tinseltown was where they last crossed paths.
The long-time Monaghan prodigy who was once visited by Kendrick Lamar in his dressing room pre-fight and stopped for a ringside selfie with Cindy Crawford has swapped Los Angeles for the gym in the back garden of his family home.
The bolt-from-the-blue prospect who packed in his day job hauling lobster pots in Cork Harbour and sneaked into California from Mexico during Covid lockdown to doorstep Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach for a spot of training.
It was in Roach’s Wild Card gym, beneath the Hollywood hills, where Smithborough’s Aaron McKenna and Cobh’s Callum Walsh would have last shaken hands five or six years ago, their respective work under Roach overlapping briefly.
McKenna, already a developing professional, headed back to Ireland upon the conclusion of his contract with Golden Boy Promotions towards the end of 2021, seeking significant fights closer to home. He has since trained under his father, Fergal, in the family’s purpose-built boxing gym, complete with a full-sized, refurbished ring that once saw fellow Monaghan boxing great Barry McGuigan, as well as Rinty Monaghan, grace its canvas.
Walsh, still an amateur, initially chanced his arm with the great Roach purely to prepare for the 2021 Irish Elites. He arrived on a Wednesday, however – sparring day at the Wild Card. Roach welcomed him in only on the provision that Walsh jump in the ring immediately to prove he could hack it in an elite training environment.
In a later interview with The 42, Roach recalled his inner monologue as he first observed Walsh, barely 20, spar one of his brightest talents: “‘There aren’t too many guys in my gym who are going to give him trouble.’”
“A good fighter comes through the door, the whole gym pays attention,” Roach added. “And that’s what happened with Callum.”
Walsh parked his amateur aspirations and turned professional under Tom Loeffler, the Californian promoter who brought the Klitschko brothers and Gennady Golovkin to the masses. He soon afterwards piqued the interest of UFC president Dana White, a mutual friend of both Loeffler and Roach who, years before launching his Zuffa Boxing project, jumped on board as Walsh’s sponsor and unofficial co-promoter, platforming his fights on the UFC Fight Pass streaming service.
Walsh’s association with the UFC led to his relationship with MMA star Tabatha ‘Baby Shark’ Ricci, with whom he now owns a bustling farm, and his being championed at every turn by White has contributed in no small part to his becoming the second-most-followed Irish boxer on social media behind Katie Taylor.
Most importantly, Walsh’s fists have done enough talking to earn him a professional record of 16-0 (11KOs) after four and a half years in the professional boxing ring. He last year parted ways with Roach, with whom he retains a strong friendship, and now trains under Roach’s long-time assistant, Marvin Somodio, at Manny Pacquiao’s Pacquiao Prime Boxing Gym, just off Hollywood Boulevard.
Back across the Atlantic, Aaron McKenna [20-0, 10KOs], who turned professional as a teenager four years before Walsh, has found fights more difficult to come by in recent years, with various promotional and contractual complications leaving him on ice for lengthy spells. McKenna has still banked at least one career-furthering victory in each of the last three years, however.
‘The Silencer’ defeated recent world-title challenger Uisma Lima via unanimous decision in a barnburner live on Sky Sports in June 2023. He stopped the previously unbeaten Jeovanny Estela in the quarter-final of a $1 million tournament in July 2024, only for Matchroom’s revamped Prizefighter competition to fall apart at the seams before the semis. Owing him one, Eddie Hearn and co. handed McKenna a breakout opportunity before the eyes of a huge international audience. The Monaghan man took it with aplomb, dominating former light-middleweight world champion Liam Smith in what had been considered a 50-50 scrap on the undercard of Chris Eubank-Conor Benn I at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in April of last year.
McKenna’s world-class performance, combined with his teaming up with US-based manager Mike Borao (who also co-manages American star Teofimo Lopez), led to his leaping towards the top of the queue to challenge IBF middleweight world champion Janibek Alimkhanuly.
However, the Kazakh was stripped of his belt earlier this year after failing a drug test. Consequently, McKenna, who is now promoted by Dana White’s Zuffa, and the next-best-positioned contender, Italy’s Etinosa Oliha [22-0, 10KOs], will compete for the vacant world-title belt in Dublin, live on Sky Sports.
Remarkably, victory for McKenna will mean he joins only Andy Lee, Steve Collins and the first-ever world champion in the division, Nonpareil Jack Dempsey, on the short list of Irish-born middleweights to claim global honours. More noteworthy still is that McKenna’s maiden world-title opportunity will mark his first professional bout on Irish soil.
“It’s something I’ve been dreaming of since I started boxing at six years old,” McKenna said. “To finally get a fight for the world title and for it to be in Ireland makes it extra special.
“I have goosebumps just thinking about fighting in there with that Irish atmosphere. I’ve been boxing for 20 years, and it’s all going to come down to this night.”
Oliha, meanwhile, a qualified electrician and a year McKenna’s senior at 28, will become Italy’s first world champion at any weight for 10 years should he stun the home crowd in Dublin and complete his own fairytale.
“The atmosphere is not going to bother me because in the ring, it’s going to be just me and him,” said the Turin native. “I don’t think he can match my work-rate; I’m an all-rounder boxer, so anything he brings will not be new to me.
“I will win this fight, and I will hurt him.”
McKenna, the more versatile and complete technical boxer, is favoured by the oddsmakers to overcome the polished Oliha, whose body attack will need to be respected. It’s been only a week, after all, since an unfancied visitor ripped up the script in a 3Arena main event.
Watching on will surely be Callum Walsh, who, a fight before McKenna-Oliha, will take on a career-toughest opponent in former European middleweight champion Tyler Denny.
The Englishman’s modest-looking 24-4-3 (1KO) record belies his threat on Saturday night: Denny has in recent years sullied the unbeaten records of British- and European-title-level opponents in Bradley Rea, Brad Pauls and, with the EBU continental belt on the line in 2024, the previously fancied Felix Cash, and he gave a fine account of himself in a points defeat by the also-undefeated George Liddard back in March.
Denny, a decade Walsh’s senior at 35, has also been a fully fledged middleweight for the entirety of his 11-year professional career, whereas Walsh is a newcomer to the division — and not necessarily by choice.
Walsh’s promoters, Zuffa Boxing, don’t recognise light-middleweight, the division in which the Cork southpaw has campaigned since turning professional in 2021. Walsh has fought just once since making the consequently obligatory jump from 154 pounds to 160, and he didn’t appear to carry with him his typical power as he earned a wide points victory over Mexican puncher Carlos Ocampo [previously 38-3, 26KOs] back in January. Furthermore, Walsh’s fleshier-than-usual body composition at Friday’s weigh-in — he’s still in great nick, mind — would suggest he’s just not yet physically a middleweight despite tipping the scales slightly heavier than Denny bang on the 160-pound limit.
Of Denny’s four career defeats, only Andy Lee’s current super-middleweight world titleist Hamzah Sheeraz has flattened the man from England’s West Midlands. For Walsh to do so would certainly reintegrate him with fine company, but it’s equally possible that this becomes a tricky fight for the naturally smaller Walsh if his early bombs don’t leave a dent in Denny.
A statement victory for Walsh, however, would position him to challenge the winner of McKenna-Oliha for the IBF world title in the not-too-distant future. Indeed, that’s surely Zuffa’s intention in putting Ireland’s two highest-ranked middleweights in the top two slots of Saturday night’s bill at the 3Arena.
Walsh has previously stated a disinterest in facing a compatriot unless a tangible carrot is being dangled between them. His preference is for Irish boxers to track mud on the carpets of others rather than collide in the narrow corridor. But he is certainly open to a world-title shot against McKenna, for whom he has full respect but with whom he has no meaningful relationship.
A prospective world-title showdown between McKenna and Walsh would be only the second-ever all-Irish clash for global honours, following Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan’s rematch for the IBF welterweight world title at Windsor Park 10 months ago.
Victory for Walsh against Denny, though, is far from a given, and McKenna will equally require something near his best if he is to join Katie Taylor and Anthony Cacace as a reigning Irish world champion.
Coverage of the bill, which also includes Joe Ward’s return to the professional ring after a two-year absence among other bouts with Irish interest, will begin at 7pm on Sky Sports Action, and on Sky Sports Main Event from 8pm.
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