CALLUM WALSH WILL for the second time headline the 5,000-capacity Theater at Madison Square Garden tonight as St Patrick’s Weekend festivities kick off in New York, and to some degree he’ll look to set the record straight.
Cork light-middleweight Walsh was underwhelmed by his own performance in his last main-event slot at MSG in November, albeit it was good enough to beat a big-hitting fellow prospect, Ismael Villarreal, in the Bronx native’s backyard.
Walsh, who progressed his professional record to 9-0(7KOs) when his hand raised on a unanimous decision last time out, was ultimately able to apply perspective to what he felt was a slightly sluggish display until the later rounds: it was his first Big Apple fight week and as the face on the billboard, his media obligations and the associated pulling and dragging were incomparable to anything he had experienced before.
Callum Walsh vs Ismael Villarreal,
— FightOdyssey (@FightOdyssey1) February 6, 2024
Prospects square off, 2023 New York UD10 #Boxing pic.twitter.com/0jjbTjsU1D
Walsh says he didn’t feel the pressure mentally but he reckons it probably took a few per cent out of him physically, which is a valuable lesson to have learned for a 23-year-old boxer ahead of even bigger nights — including this one.
“That’s why I’m looking forward to doing it again so soon,” Walsh says.
“Look, at the end of the day, I was fighting a good young prospect in his back garden.
“If anything, it gave me more confidence because ultimately I went into his town, where his fans are, and I fought him and I got the win. And that was the best version of him. His family and friends were all there. He was going to come out and give it everything. That was the best he’s ever going to be.
“The hardest one, my first time fighting at MSG, is done. Going back again, I already know what to expect when I walk out and see the crowd. It’s still going to be a great feeling to fight there, and I’ll have a lot of the same feelings, but I’m not going in there blind.”
Walsh’s victory over Villarreal was a thrilling back and forth in which the Cobh man at least feels he proved to fans that he can “sit down and tough it out” when things aren’t going all his own way.
All going to plan, tonight’s match-up with Brooklyn-based Kazakh Dauren Yeleussinov (11-3-1, 10KOs) will be about proving himself levels above this calibre of opposition — even if the 37-year-old is the naturally larger man having campaigned for most of his career up at middleweight.
But it’s also about gaining further infamy in New York so that Walsh can fly the flag passed onto him by Michael Conlan and John Duddy before them in becoming an annual St Patrick’s Weekend fixture for the city’s Irish community.
Walsh, who lives and trains in Hollywood, Los Angeles, under the tutelage of Hall of Famer Freddie Roach, wants to make MSG his third home — and potentially HQ for his pursuit of world-title belts in the near future.
“To fight here in a main event twice in four months… Nobody’s doing that,” he says. “And the fact that I’m doing it at 23 years of age…” Walsh pauses.
“It’s crazy. I’m thinking about it now but during fight week, I try not to think about it too much. I try not to let it get to my head how big it is.
“I just focus on the fight and then after the fight, I’ll enjoy it; I’ll take in the crowd and I’ll realise what I’ve actually accomplished.”
Between fights, though, Walsh admits that he spends plenty of time ruminating over his rapid rise within professional boxing, trying to make sense of it all.
As well as being trained by Roach, whose Wild Card gym Walsh doorstepped off the plane from Ireland during the pandemic, the Cork man is ostensibly co-promoted by Tom Loeffler — the man who brought the Klitschko brothers and Gennady Golovkin to the masses — and UFC president Dana White.
Due to White’s trumpeting, and with the fact that Walsh’s bouts — including tonight’s — are streamed exclusively live on UFC Fight Pass, he is a boxer whose appeal crosses into the world of mixed martial arts (albeit his relationship with Brazilian UFC star Tabatha Ricci is too much for some to bear).
Walsh already makes serious money for a 23-year-old — he’ll probably earn low six figures against Yeleussinov — and his 200-odd-thousand followers on Instagram speak to his profile, which is almost ubiquitous with Irish sports fans in his rough age bracket.
And it’s barely been three years since he had literally none of this and was instead working on a boat in Cobh Harbour, fishing for lobsters and crabs.
“I think about it all the time how crazy it is, how fast my life has changed,” Walsh says. “I even get memories on my phone from three years ago and I’m on the boats. It’s weird to think that I was hauling pots so recently and now I’m sitting here in America, doing an interview, getting ready to fight at MSG.
“A couple of interviews, training, and that’s me done for the day, then, d’you know what I mean?” Walsh laughs.
The harder day’s work between the two depends on his mood, Walsh explains with another chuckle, before turning serious.
“I’m still the same person though. I still don’t do much else in LA other than what I’m doing now. It’s basically a nine-to-five: wake up, do the likes of this, train… When I’m in LA, I’m there to work, y’know what I mean? I train and I fight and I don’t do much outside of that.
“And when I’m at home (in Cobh), then, like, I still just do the same shit with the lads as we’ve always done: we just go to the pub and watch the match, or whatever. Last time I was home, we were just in the pub watching the darts the whole time. Nobody’s any different.”
Walsh is confident, meanwhile, that he’ll take some work home with him at some point in 2024.
He has grown increasingly keen to fight in Ireland and if the wheels aren’t quite yet in motion, they’re certainly being greased.
“Yeah, definitely. I think we’re going to get back this year, alright. I think so.
“I definitely wanna get back. It’s just that we have to figure out the timing, y’know? Not me, but Dana and Tom. They’ll tell me and I’ll go.
“But I think definitely this year.”
Tonight, though, Walsh will experience the next best thing: somewhere approaching 5,000 of his fans beckoning him down the stairs to the ring at Madison Square Garden on St Patrick’s Weekend.
“I just want to go in and show my skills more this time,” he says.
“I’ll enjoy it a small bit when I walk out and then, once I get the win, I’ll enjoy it even more then; hopefully get out in the crowd, meet everybody… and go wherever everybody’s going afterwards!”
Callum Walsh takes on Dauren Yeleussinov at Madison Square Garden tonight, live on UFC Fight Pass.
