CORK LIGHT-MIDDLEWEIGHT CALLUM Walsh first met Hall of Fame boxing trainer Freddie Roach seven years ago, when he was 15.
Spending a portion of his summer holidays in Los Angeles where his dad lives, Walsh took a day trip to Roach’s revered Wild Card Boxing Club at the base of the Hollywood hills, workplace to a litany of history’s greatest fighters including Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and UFC icon George St-Pierre.
The schoolboy amateur standout got a photograph with the boss man Roach, who months earlier had been crowned boxing’s Trainer of the Year for a seventh time. He bought a t-shirt as a souvenir. And he left with a promise to his teenage self that, if he was ever to turn professional in adulthood, he would do it in The House That Freddie Built.
Walsh darkened Roach’s door for a second time sooner than he had planned.
It was peak trough Covid in early 2021, gym doors were locked — again, and having recently blasted his way into the final in his first ever Irish Seniors (he lost to future Olympic medallist Aidan Walsh in the 69kg decider), the 20-year-old Callum was keen to continue his rapid development in the amateur ring.
He parked his seven-day job on a fishing boat in his hometown of Cobh and booked a one-way flight to LA. He chanced his arm at the Wild Card virtually straight off the plane, totally unannounced.
The boxing club’s upstairs gym, open to the public for $5 a session, was closed due to California State Covid regulations. Downstairs, however, Walsh happened upon Roach and a couple of his professional boxers who were permitted by law to train as normal behind closed doors.
“Freddie’s there every day,” Walsh smiles. “If you show up there, you’re going to see Freddie, guaranteed.
“I just told him I wanted to train there, keep myself going ahead of competitions back home. But it happened to be a Wednesday, which is ‘Sparring Day.’ So, basically, ‘You have to spar — it’s a Wednesday.’
Walsh, now 22, laughs. “I was a bit nervous going in, like… But obviously, I’m not going to say ‘no’ to Freddie Roach if he wants me to spar!”
Adding petrol to this baptism of fire was the fact that Roach demanded that Walsh spar six rounds — twice the duration of the amateur fights to which the young blow-in was accustomed.
Roach recalls his inner monologue having first watched Walsh in his Wild Card ring: “‘There aren’t too many guys in my gym who are going to give him trouble.’”
“And I didn’t give Callum anybody easy, that’s for sure!” the 62-year-old beams.
“He went in there, it was a great sparring match, and he fit right in. It was a lot of fun.
“A good fighter comes through the door, the whole gym pays attention,” Roach continues. “And that’s what happened with Callum.
“It’s funny, like, when Manny Pacquiao first came to me, he was a polite kid knocking on my door and wanting to know if he could do mitts with me. And I said, ‘Is that all you wanna do?’
“After one round on mitts, it was like we both decided: I knew that he could fight, and he knew that I could train, and we agreed to work together.
“The same thing happened with Callum. He showed me his power shots. He can punch. And whenever you meet a young kid who can knock people out, it’s always immediately that little bit special.
And Callum’s the star of the crowd in my gym now. After his last couple of wins, he’s pretty much on his way up the ladder.
Roach recalls how he and Walsh immediately bonded over Cork, home to the boxer but equally the site of a couple of Roach’s own formative glories as a trainer: Steve Collins’ 1995 world-title victories over Chris Eubank at Millstreet and Páirc Uí Chaoimh respectively.
“The first time I was in Cork with Steve, I was carrying the belt into the ring. They thought I was just a little kid and they tried to throw me out!” Roach laughs.
“I’m like, ‘No! No! I’m working the corner!’ And the guy is like, ‘Yeah, sure, kid!’
“One of my cutmen standing behind the security officer pushed him aside and said, ‘C’mon, son, let’s go to the ring.’ It was… It was a mess right away!” Roach smiles.
“Now, when I talked about those fights with Callum, I said to him, ‘Well, you weren’t born yet… but you’ll eventually get there.’”
During the early stages of his and Roach’s partnership, however, Walsh had no intention of following Collins’ career path. The former six-time underage Irish champion and European Junior gold medallist had only just begun to turn heads as a senior in Ireland’s amateur system, in which greater honours surely awaited.
With the Tokyo Olympic spot sewn up by Aidan Walsh, however, Callum stayed off Skyscanner for the time being and instead applied for a Green Card.
Remaining amateur, he trained under Roach for the guts of 2021, regularly sparring high-level pros to assist them in their own big-fight preparations. Before long, Walsh was turning the heads of professional-boxing stakeholders across America’s West Coast, inviting regular inquiries as to his availability to do business.
“Eventually I just said, ‘Fuck it, look, I’ll just make my debut,’” Walsh shrugs. “‘I’m not gonna sign any contracts or anything, but I’ll just see if I can make my debut and see what happens.’
“…It’s after working out alright, anyway,” laughs Walsh, now 7-0 (6KOs) in the punch-for-pay ranks. “I’m still here!”
Roach, meanwhile, had known all along to which boxing code his increasingly coveted southpaw belonged.
“After watching him spar on that first day, I definitely knew there was a lot of potential there.
I remember he knocked one of my guys out and the guy was knocked out for about 15 minutes. When those things happen, you have a real fighter on your hands.
Tom Loeffler and his 360 Promotions outfit discovered as much when they granted Walsh his professional debut on a card in Montebello, California, in December 2021.
“They didn’t really know much about me, but a lot of Irish people showed up,” Walsh smiles, still half-surprised.
“We sold a lot of tickets and the fight didn’t last long.”
The optimal formula for a boxing promoter.
Loeffler, the Californian best known for bringing generational greats Gennady Golovkin and the Klitschko brothers to the masses, promptly put Walsh on his subsequent St Patrick’s weekend show where the Irish prospect picked up an even quicker second win, this one in just 33 seconds.
It was through Loeffler that Walsh was eventually introduced to UFC president Dana White, who took such a shine to the Cork man early last year that he has since ostensibly become Walsh’s co-promoter from across the combat-sports divide.
Walsh has recently begun to headline Loeffler-promoted boxing cards which are broadcast live on the UFC’s online streaming service, UFC Fight Pass. In the lead-up to Walsh’s bouts, White champions the young boxer at every turn. His whiskey partner, Howler head, is also one of Walsh’s primary sponsors.
The impact of this cross-pollination on the Cobh man’s profile can’t be overstated. Walsh, who has taken to the professional ring just seven times, boasts almost 150,000 Instagram followers and is fast becoming a recognisable name among sports fans of his generation.
Equally, though, Walsh is one of the first Irish boxers to have truly harnessed social media, aware from day dot that, in his line of work, attention soon becomes currency. Walsh garners that attention not through the usual clichéd updates from a boxer’s life but with droll takes on day-to-day life, or self-parody as a hard ‘feen’ from Cobh who fights for a living.
Back at his Hollywood base, he shares this sense of humour with trainer Roach, the former-boxer-turned-trainer who might speak softly to the outside world but whom Walsh describes as “one of the funniest fellas I’ve ever met.”
“Once you get to know him and you understand how he is, you realise he’s crazy,” Walsh exclaims. “Like… the man doesn’t give a fuck about anything, y’know? He’s always talking smack, he’s always messing, he’s always having a laugh.
“We do have a good laugh every day at training. I’d go into the gym and Freddie would go, ‘Do you know who you’re sparring today? Ah, I’m not even gonna tell you because I know you don’t give a fuck.’”
Since his arrival in LA, Walsh’s general bauldness has plainly endeared him to Roach, who enthusiastically expands:
Sometimes I’ll ask Callum who he wants to spar with and he’ll just say, ‘Pick anyone you want.’ So, obviously, I gotta pick the best one! And then he knocks the best one out. And that’s him putting down his stamp in the gym.
“And he’s only going to get better and better,” Roach continues. “Callum has great potential. He’s not a complete fighter yet but we’re working on that: body and head shots, and getting guys out of there with both.
“He’s very confident in himself. He lives just up the street. He walks to the gym. He doesn’t want anyone sending a car to get him or anything like that — he just walks. And once he walks here, he can spar with anyone in here. He knows that. He has that will in himself.”
Walsh, on the other hand, finds beauty in Roach’s raw honesty. Fear of being on the wrong end of it one day ensures that no corners are cut, be it in the gym or on lung-bursting runs from the Wild Card up to the Hollywood sign overlooking their neighbourhood.
“If you’re not going to make it or if you don’t belong there, Freddie will tell you straight out,” Walsh explains. “I’ve seen him do it: ‘You’re not good enough to be here,’ or, ‘You’ll have to train upstairs.’
At the end of the day, it’s his gym and he doesn’t want people coming in there fucking around. He wants the best for his fighters. There’s no one who comes into the downstairs gym who shouldn’t be there. If you’re not holding your own, if you’re not doing well in sparring, we don’t need you. We already have the best fighters in the world coming in there.
“So, the fact that I’ve been able to stay down there for as long as I’ve been there, with no problems…” Walsh pauses. “D’you know, I think one of the reasons we get on so well, too, is because I understand Freddie is the coach. He tells me what to do and I just do it.
“That’s the way it’s always been, even when I was back in Riverstown Boxing Club in Cork: I’ve always thought that the coach is the boss. And if you don’t like it, you can go home.
“This is my job, ultimately. I’m there to listen and to learn from Freddie. And the fact that he does have that confidence in me gives me a boost as well.
Freddie has already said it… Like, when he introduces me to people now, he says, ‘Oh, this is my best fighter.’
Walsh chuckles. “If Freddie Roach is saying that about ya, you must be doing something right.”
21-year-old Cork man Callum Walsh moved to 5-0, 4KOs with a big third-round win this morning over Brooklyn’s Delen Parsley (previously 13-1, 4KOs).
— Gavan Casey (@GavanCasey) November 4, 2022
Trained by Freddie Roach, promoted by Tom Loeffler and backed by Dana White. He’s got a bit about him… pic.twitter.com/NCR6jIG4Gj
Roach, who works seven days a week — either in his gym or at a fight destination — made his first trip home to Boston for five years on St Patrick’s Weekend of this year, when Walsh picked up his sixth pro win — and a fifth quick. “I knew if I took on an Irish kid and got him moving in the right direction, I’d get back there eventually,” the Hall of Famer jokes. “That was a special day, to have my fighter win by knockout in my hometown.”
It’s equally “always a dream” to bring Walsh back to Cork one day, Roach stresses — though Walsh’s own dream is to do it big, at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, when he’s world-title ready. Roach’s return to Leeside, where he will surely be considered somewhat less of a security risk the second time around, will have to wait a few more years.
“In the shorter term, we’re talking about Boston Garden for Callum”, Roach says, referring to the Boston Celtics’ and Bruins’ 19,500-capacity home venue.
There’s also a lot of noise coming from New York about bringing him there — and the kid would be a superstar in New York. I just think about how many planes would be coming in from Cork and Ireland. I think when we get there, there’s going to be a lot of planes.
Some young fella from cobh plastered all over billboards in Boston. pic.twitter.com/lTuevtbssA
— KING CALLUM WALSH (@KINGCALLUMWALSH) March 11, 2023
In the more immediate future, Walsh will test himself for the eighth time as a professional at the Commerce Casino, Los Angeles, against Argentinian vet Juan Jose Velasco (24-4, 15KOs) next Saturday.
The 36-year-old ‘Pitbull’ has won four of his last six outings against decent opposition and victory for either man will significantly propel them up the light-middleweight ladder.
Walsh, 14 years Velasco’s junior and coming off the back of a career-best stoppage win against longtime welterweight gatekeeper Carson Jones in June, says: “Once I knock this fella out, I should jump up the rankings a lot; to where I want to be, to where my name should be one that people are looking out for.
“I think a couple of fights ago, everybody thought it’d be a good idea for me to kinda take the long road, build myself slowly, see what we can do. But now they’ve seen me in the ring, they’ve seen what I can do to my opponents, I probably have no other choice than to be on the fast track, y’know?
“That’s just the way it’s going to have to be: you can’t be putting opponents in front of me who aren’t worthy of being there because it’s just not going to do me any good.
“I feel like I’m a top-level fighter and I feel like the only way I’m going to be able to show people what I can do is by fighting at the top level.”
Roach, just as he’s been since he nearly got blown out of Millstreet 28 years ago, is ready for the thrills and spills en route.
“I’ve got this young boxer from Ireland and I’m going to take him a long, long way,” he says. “It’s going to be a great journey for him and it’s going to be a great journey for me.”
Watch Callum Walsh against Juan Jose Velasco on Saturday 26 August, exclusively on UFC Fight Pass
