Being grandson of boxing legend Ali 'a blessing and a curse' for emerging MMA fighter
Being grandson of boxing legend Ali 'a blessing and a curse' for emerging MMA fighter
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Imagine being a grandson of an American icon, at once a heavyweight boxing champion and a courageous civil rights hero. Imagine trying to find your way in mixed martial arts while carrying the weight of that family name and legacy.
Imagine being Biaggio Ali Walsh, the grandson of the one and only Muhammad Ali.
For Ali Walsh, the 24-year-old up-and-coming mixed martial artist, the name "Ali" is both "a blessing and a curse," as he tries to move up the ranks in the Professional Fighters League (PFL), a relatively young mixed martial arts (MMA) competition.
"Obviously, the blessing is we get the exposure that we're getting a little bit easier than most people," Ali Walsh told Yonhap News Agency in an interview from Las Vegas on Friday. "But that is also kind of a curse. There's more pressure, there's more eyes on us. People expect so much of you, which kind of falls back into the category of pressure. I'd say it's definitely a blessing and a curse."
Ali Walsh's younger brother, Nico, is a boxer. Growing up, the two boys would be challenged to street boxing matches by people who knew the two were related to Ali. In Biaggio's words, the brothers "would beat 스포츠 up on some kids who wanted to fight us," but boxing never once entered his mind.
"I became an MMA fan early in high school," he said. "And I just fell in love with the idea that there's multiple martial arts rather than just one martial art that can play a part in a fight."
But before he got into MMA, Ali Walsh was an accomplished football player. As a running back for the powerhouse Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Ali Walsh won three consecutive national championships while going 45-0 from 2014 to 2016.
But the promising football career hit a speed bump in college. He first committed to the University of California, Berkeley, with a full-ride scholarship. Before Ali Walsh even got to the campus, though, the coaching staff that had recruited him had been fired. The new staff didn't play him, prompting Ali Walsh to come home and play for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He didn't get much playing time there, either, and football no longer seemed to be in his future.