When the 2023 Professional Fighters League (PFL) World Championship starts tonight in Washington D.C., the focus of everyone’s attention will not be the 12 pro MMA athletes battling it out for six world titles and six $1 million championship purses.
Instead, all eyes will be on 25-year-old American Biaggio Ali Walsh who will take on compatriot Joel Lopez in an amateur bout – only the seventh of Walsh’s still fledgling career and his fifth in the PFL.
The reason for all the excitement about an amateur MMA athlete? Walsh is the grandson of the late, great Muhammad Ali, widely considered to be the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time!
Walsh is the elder son of Ali’s daughter, the author, public speaker and Parkinson’s Disease advocate, Rasheda, and former executive chef, Bob Walsh, who now manages both his sons’ careers. Walsh’s younger brother, Nico, 22, has followed in his grandfather’s footsteps and became a professional middleweight boxer two years ago.
But it is Walsh who is grabbing all the attention right now – and with good reason. Since his loss in his first amateur fight in June 2022, he has won five on the trot – and the last four have been first-round triumphs in PFL competitions.
Speculation in MMA circles has suggested that Walsh might turn pro if he wins tonight against Lopez.
But the athlete said he had left that decision to his coach, former MMA fighter Dennis Davis.
“I’m just focused on getting all the experience I can right now,” Walsh told the GDN from Washington D.C. in an exclusive interview.
“God willing, if I come up victorious tonight, I’m going to sit down with my coach to see what he thinks is best. I think if I win, I’ll be ready to turn pro but, ultimately, I want to see what my coach thinks so we’ll see what happens then.”
Davis is one of the most respected coaches on the US MMA circuit and Walsh said he deferred to his decisions in every respect.
“I listen to my coach 100 per cent,” he said.
“My coach is very knowledgeable about the sport. I’m still a baby so I’m still learning which means that I feel obligated to do whatever he says because he knows more.”
“Some fighters might let their ego get in the way – they do what they want to do and don’t listen to their coach. But I’m a fighter that’s always going to listen to my coach. Even in a fight, if he sees something I might not see, I’ll trust him. I always listen to my coaches and that will never change.”
Walsh then explained why he didn’t follow in his legendary grandfather’s footsteps and take up boxing, like Nico has and aunt, Laila – who became a professional super middleweight and light heavyweight boxer in 1999 before retiring, undefeated in 2007 with a 24-0 record.
“Actually, I didn’t try boxing,” he said.
“Growing up, I used to hit pads a little bit, maybe, but that’s all the boxing experience I had. I actually went straight into MMA right after playing Division 1 college football.
“MMA drew me in. I loved the fact that you could use multiple tools to win a fight, I love that there’s multiple martial arts that can play a part in a fight. That idea alone is what brought me to MMA.”
Growing up as the grandsons of one of the most famous and influential sports personalities of the 20th century hasn’t been without its difficulties, though, for both the Walsh brothers.
In 2021, just before he turned pro, Nico said in an interview that, despite trying to keep his lineage a secret, people would still find out, leading to people always trying to hurt him and doubling down on their efforts to knock him out.
“Everyone wants to knock out Muhammed Ali’s grandson,” he said.
“I would never tell anyone who I was but they’d always find out.
“And when they did, they’d always try to knock me out or hurt me because they wanted to be able to say: ‘Hey, I hurt Muhammad Ali’s grandson, I knocked out Muhammad Ali’s grandson’!”
Walsh said he’d experienced the same throughout his childhood and only expected it to get worse as he rose up through the global MMA ranks.
“Throughout my entire childhood, people used to try to test me and challenge me just because of who I am related to, they wanted to box and fight just because they wanted to see if Muhammad Ali’s grandson could fight,” he said.
“But I always overcame those challenges by whooping them,” he chuckled.
“Seriously, though, I expect it to only get worse as I go up and up in this sport.”
There has long been a debate about the longevity of boxers compared to MMA athletes with a widespread belief suggesting that the former are likely to have longer careers. But Walsh said the answer wasn’t really as black-and-white as people thought.
“It depends, really,” he explained.
“In MMA, there’s more ways to win and also more ways to lose. If you get submitted, you’re not getting knocked out.
“With boxing, you’ve got boxing gloves you’re taking more damage to the head so I think that’s worse, longevity-wise.
“MMA’s more brutal because the gloves are smaller and there’s more cuts and blood but boxing’s more dangerous because the target is the head or the body and, most of the time, it’s the head.”
Muhammad Ali’s diagnosis of Parkingson’s syndrome in 1984 was widely attributed to boxing-related head injuries although he and his specialist doctors disputed this. The diagnosis didn’t stop Ali from continuing his work as a philanthropist and activist but he made fewer public appearances in his later years as his condition worsened, with his family caring for him. He died in 2016 at the age of 74.
“He’s my only hero!” Walsh said, before adding he was excited to be a part of the PFL with all that was on the horizon.
“I’m excited to see what the PFL has in store for fight fans and for the fighters,” he said.
“I expect only good things! It’s super exciting!”
The PFL is set to expand its footprint into the Middle East next year after a company owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought a minor stake in it.
As a result of a deal between PIF subsidiary SRJ Sports Investments (SRJ) and the PFL, an MMA league and Super Fight division will be launched.
And SRJ, which has a minority equity ownership stake in the PFL, will become an investor in a new league called PFL Middle East and North Africa (Mena), headquartered in Saudi Arabia, which will be launched next year.
The PFL Mena League will follow in the footsteps of the original PFL, based in the United States, which started in 2018, and the newly-launched PFL European League, with four more regional leagues to be added by 2026, creating the first-ever ‘Champions League of MMA’.
And, although nothing is definite right now, Bahrain could also potentially feature as one of the venues in the PFL Mena League.
“I would love to go to Saudi Arabia to take part in the PFL Mena League,” Walsh said.
“And I would absolutely love to visit Bahrain!”
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