This time tomorrow rising Irish star Callum Walsh takes on veteran Carson Jones at the Commerce Casino, California. His promoter Tom Loeffler has already said of his plans for Walsh to become a world champion by the end of next year. Headlining live on UFC Fight Pass the 22 year old will hope to chalk up his seventh professional victory.
“I’m expecting Jones to come out strong.” Walsh said in an exclusive interview for ProBox TV. “He’s looking at me like I’m a kid, he will come in and try to bully me but it’s not going to happen. He said in the press conference that I’m not going to be able to deal with his pressure and stuff like that. You know, I think I will get the stoppage. He will be tough, it will take a few rounds for me to break him down but I’m hoping to get him out of there and get the stoppage. I never want to go in there and have boring fights or go the distance to just move around and get rounds. I just want to go in there and get the job done!”
Walsh boasts a strong lineup among his backroom staff with promoter Tom Loeffler, trainer Freddie Roach and MMA mogul Dana White sponsors and televises the southpaw from Cork.
“Dana is an unbelievable man to have in the team.” Walsh explained. “He’s not a boxing promoter, so he doesn’t have to do the things that he is doing for me. But what he is doing is unbelievable, I’m getting different eyes on me. I’m getting the boxing fans and I’m getting the UFC fans. Fighting on Fight Pass there are so many different sports that are on that platform, so we are not just getting the boxing fans. We have a good relationship, and his whiskey brand Howler Head is my main sponsor.”
Ireland’s recent re-emergence as a place to stage great fights once more has Walsh eager for a homecoming in his native Cork after an entirety of a career stateside.
“There were two big shows back there two weeks ago, Katie Taylor and Michael Conlan brought back the big buzz of boxing in Ireland.” Walsh continued. “I know they didn’t go the way we wanted them, but still they were big shows. From what I’ve seen there was a buzz with Conor McGregor being there and everyone was buzzing to have boxing back. I’ve been out here a long time, the last two years I have been building a name for myself but I feel I need a homecoming. I need to show the Irish people that I didn’t just leave and forget about my own country and my own people. I think it is nearly time.
“When I left Ireland everything had gone to shit with covid. There were no fights at all, everything was just shit. So I decided I’m going to come over here and turn pro. I just showed up to the Wild Card one day and Freddie Roach made me spar on my first day. I’ve been there ever since, it was one of those things where I just showed up and he said ‘show me what you have’ and I’m still there to this day. I’ve done a lot of rounds with Gabriel Rosado, I’ve done some rounds with Eimantas Stanionis and Vergil Ortiz. Anybody you can think of I’ve probably done rounds with because I’ve been there two years, and Freddie just doesn’t care and he knows I don’t care either I’ll get in there with anyone. I just showed up one day and I think I did 6 rounds. I was only used to doing 3 and I was tired and a little bit nervous in the later rounds sparring against a pro I didn’t even know. But Freddie was happy enough.”
