Nico Ali Walsh - Muhammad Ali’s grandson - admits his lineage makes him a target in the world of boxing.
Walsh announced that he would turn professional in March 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic put paid to those ambitions for more than a year.
He has since taken some training time with SugarHill Steward, who oversees the preparation of WBC champion Tyson Fury, and will now fight on a Bob Arum card headlined by the Andrew Moloney vs. Joshua Franco trilogy rematch this Saturday.
Speaking to MyBettingSites, Ali acknowledged that he could not hide who his grandfather was anymore, even if it would spur on potential opponents.
"Everyone wants to knockout Muhammad 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’. I say being Muhammad Ali’s grandson is a blessing and a curse and that falls under the curse category.
"My last name is Walsh, so I tried to hide behind Walsh. But at some point every coach I had told me that at some point you have to become the name, be the name, and accept it because there was no hiding from it.
"I stopped wearing shirts with my grandfather on the front, I had a tattoo of him on my arm and I would start hiding it. But there was no point of hiding it because people would find out anyway. So I embraced the name. I stopped hiding from the name and embraced it when I realised I could not hide from it any longer.
"The two biggest reasons were: I didn’t want to be treated any differently and I didn’t want to be looked at as the enemy of all the boxers in whatever gym I was in. Those were the two reasons that really shied me away from embracing my name. But once I realised there was no hiding from it, I chose to embrace it, and that’s where I’m at now.
"I’ll definitely have a target on my back as a professional but where I'm at now mentally, I'm able to handle the pressures. And I'm grateful for that, because this all started back when I was 10 when I first put on a pair of gloves."
Walsh also credited Fury as an inspiration, but could not imagine that he would have the beating of his grandfather.
"My uncle and manager Mike Joyce trained with Sugar Hill’s uncle Manny Steward. And they were very close. So it worked out perfectly that we were set up. And I think it’s great that he’s continuing his uncle’s legacy and that’s the situation as I'm doing. If there’s any trainer who understands that it’s Sugar Hill.
"Tyson Fury has not given me a tremendous amount of advice - I did not want to bother him. He was in training camp. Just being around him is enough for me. Just watching Tyson and seeing how he works and his work ethic. Nobody sees the stuff he does behind closed doors, the stuff the public does not see; that’s the stuff that matters and that’s what I’ve learnt from Tyson Fury the most. I love Tyson Fury - and this is a complete biased opinion - but I don’t think anyone in history would beat my grandfather.
“It’s an exciting story - history is repeating itself. If you are a fan of my grandfather’s then I'm sure you’d love to tune in and watch the fight. There’s always been a level of pressure on me because of my name. This is a new level of pressure but grandfather is my grandfather. I don’t have the pressure of continuing the legacy of the great Muhammad Ali because, i’m contining the legacy of Pappy - my grandfather."