“Who you thought about when you went up to the ring?” Asked an ESPN journalist to the boxer of only 21 years, last Saturday, just as he had just earn his first combat as a professional by Ko technical.
Everyone knew the answer.
And, in fact, that response, only that response, justified that a television network as ESPN was retransmitting live for all the United States the debut of a stranger until that moment.
“Obviously on my grandfather, I thought a lot about him, I miss him, it has been a very emotional combat,” answered Nico Ali Walsh, and immediately unleashed nostalgia: his story appeared in medium world and his followers in social networks
They fired.
No one in boxing is resisting to heard the name of Muhammad Ali.
Although, as he already demonstrated the aunt’s career of him Laila Ali, that can be as good as bad.
Because, on the one hand, Ali Walsh has all the doors open, but on the other …
Ali Walsh is the son of Robert Walsh, a reputted chef, and Rasheda Ali, daughter of the most famous boxer of all time and probably, that’s why the little one followed the tradition.
As the older brother of him Biaggio, ‘Running Back’ looking for a site at the NFL, Rasheda expected Nico to play American football or, in the defect of him, basketball, baseball, to hockey year any sport that does not
Out Boxing.
But she did not get it.
They did not matter the warnings of him on the pressure he would be subjected if he climbed into a quadrilateral or even the memory of the disease he suffered by the blows.
Ali Walsh, born and raised in Las Vegas, wanted to be Boxer and Boxer is already.
“I have never been able to escape from being the grandson of who I am, although he played football, now I am starting to accept his legacy, no matter where I will arrive. I will be stronger when I accept what I am destined to do,” said the
Young man in an interview with the New York Times, that is, in another sample of overstime of his beginnings.
As the sponsorship of Everlast, which supports him from before becoming a professional.
As the contract of him with Top Rank, the Bob Arum promoter, the great rival of Don King in the offices during the eighties and the nineties.
Arum became known in 1966 by organizing the fight between Ali and George Chuvalo and now will try to become a star to the grandchild of the former represented of him, although that will be difficult.
As Mike Joyce, Uncle and Manager of Ali Walsh recently admitted, he will not be able to follow a normal evolution.
Young boxers usually have a first fogue combat, against rivals of little level and enclosure without barely amateurs.
Ali Walsh, on the other hand, from the beginning will be part of evening with national coverage and large enclosures.
It will do well in “accept the legacy” of its grandfather and, in fact, has already shown it.
In his debut he saw a white little breeze that had given him the grandfather of him and almost always trains with t-shirts with the name Muhammad Ali on his chest.
His manager, Joyce, came to think that he could be taking advantage of his last name just to get fame, but he explained, when last year he saw him preparing with the veteran coach Abel Sánchez – who took Gennady Golovkin, for example – began
Take it seriously.
“Heaven is the limit. I’m looking forward to locked up at the gym and keep learning,” said Ali Walsh to USA Today with closed dates on his calendar.
On October 23 he will play the second combat of him in Atlanta and on December 11, he will appear for the first time among the majesty of the Madison Square Garden in New York.
Ex rivals of the grandfather of him such as George Foreman or Larry Holmes have already praised him in several media and even augated him by fighting for a mid-weight world title “in less than two years”.
His career, with an important promoter, with a sponsor of weight and with a certain talent seems launched, although neither fame nor sports success will prevent him from having to respond more times to the big question of his debut: “Who did you think when you
Upon Ring? “.
