Atlanta, GA — Biaggio Ali Walsh improved to 4-1 as an amateur at PFL 5 this past Friday, care of a blistering knockout of Travell Miller.
The grandson of boxing legend Muhammad Ali has become a hot ticket for the Professional Fighters League, and the big question continues to be when he’ll turn pro. Not just yet, Ali Walsh said following Friday’s fight in Atlanta.
“I don’t think I’m ready to turn pro yet. I definitely want to up the skill of my opponents,” Ali Walsh told media outlets including Cageside Press following the victory. “I’d like to go through a three-round just war, where we’re both cut up, we’re bleeding at the face and everything. To me, that’s what fighting’s all about, is the back-and-forth, kind of like what the pioneers did, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Ben Henderson, all these guys.”
“So I think going through a war like that will help me when I’m ready to go pro, but right now I’m coming off first-round knockouts and stuff— I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
Whether he’s ready or not, Friday’s showing was another impressive one from Ali Walsh. He certainly, as his grandfather famously said, stung, though there wasn’t much time to float.
“I definitely stung. I could have floated a little more, but I definitely stung.”
Asked whether he studied his grandfather ahead of the fight, Ali Walsh explained that “before I was fighting, I always watched my grandfather. He’s like a superhero to me. Growing up, when you’re a kid, you don’t really understand or grasp the impact that he really made on the world, but as I got older, I started to kind of understand a little bit more and more. And I’m still learning, I’m only 24.”
“I’ve been watching his tape throughout my entire life, he invented the rope-a-dope, and that’s how he defeated George Foreman when the entire world though he was going to lose that,” Ali Walsh continued. “He’s a superhero to me.”
There’s another famous fighter that has had an influence on Biaggio Ali Walsh: Randy Couture. Ali Walsh trains at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas.
“I definitely want to impress Randy, I train at his gym,” noted Ali Walsh. “I first met Randy when I was like 11 years old, it’s ironic that I’m now training at his gym. It’s crazy how life works. God’s plan is always the best plan.”
Watch the full 2023 PFL 5 post-fight press conference appearance by Biaggio Ali Walsh above.
