Muhammad Ali was many things to many people: legendary athlete, champion of civil rights, world humanitarian. To PFL amateur MMA fighter Biaggio Ali Walsh, he was “just a sweet old man.”
Muhammad Ali was many things to many people: legendary athlete, champion of civil rights, world humanitarian.
Walsh, who takes a 4-1 amateur record into his fight with 2-1 Ed Davis, recalled spending plenty of time with Ali as a kid, alongside younger brother and 8-0-1 pro boxer Nico Ali Walsh. No surprise there, given Ali’s famed gift of gab that gave the world classic lines like “Float like a butterfly sting like a bee,” which inspired Walsh’s butterfly and bee tattoos on his left and right arm, respectively, which he added six months after his grandfather’s passing at age 74.
But Walsh is working diligently on his overall game at the Las Vegas gym and says he’s got plenty of tools he’s yet to show off in PFL.“I have really explosive takedowns; nobody has seen that yet,” Walsh said. “As my career goes, you’ll be able to see it. It’s going to be inevitable. … I have good head kicks, good low kicks, and my overall grappling has just gotten so much better than, say, my second fight.
“I know I got the opportunity because of my name,” continued Walsh, who embraces his Greatest lineage through mother Rasheda Ali. “But now, I want to show that I’m not just the name. I have an athletic skill [set]; I have explosiveness; I have speed; I have fight IQ; and I can fight.”
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