A FEW HOURS after the voting polls closed in Ireland on Friday night, Callum Walsh knocked out a Mexican government official in California.
It took Walsh just two rounds to flatten Carlos Ortiz, a politician, lawyer and restaurant owner, whose decent boxing career had become something resembling a fairytale when he had knocked out unbeaten Golden Boy prospect Evan Sanchez a couple of fights previously.
Headlining at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez last weekend, Walsh was in no form for diplomacy, dropping Ortiz in the first round before sending him out for the count with a bullet left hand in the second.
His 11th pro victory — and a ninth inside the distance — marked a return to eye-catching form for the Cork light-middleweight, whose previous two wins over Ismael Villarreal (UD) and Dauren Yeleussinov (TKO9) were solid if slightly unsatisfying.
“After those two performances, I knew I needed to up my game,” Walsh tells The 42. “I needed to train harder. I wanted to come out of this one actually happy with my performance, y’know? So, I trained 10 times harder. I put a lot more effort into trying to actually improve during this camp.
“I worked harder for the opponent. I studied the opponent. I’ve never really watched my opponents or trained for a certain style before — I’ve always been just like, ‘Aw, I’ll just train now and I’ll figure it out on the night.’ But for this one, we actually did a lot of drills, things in the gym, that I was going to try and do in the fight.
“That left hand that I knocked him out with, we actually trained that over and over and over again for the whole camp, so it worked out perfectly. I was actually very happy with that performance, to be fair.”
KING CALLUM WALSH HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!!#HFNBoxing pic.twitter.com/CLdX0ZVSAW
— UFC FIGHT PASS (@UFCFightPass) June 8, 2024
The 23-year-old Walsh, who has become Freddie Roach’s star pupil at the Wild Card gym in Hollywood, was wise to prepare specifically for Ortiz.
Sure, the Mexican is 39 and carried with him to the ring a modest record of 14-5, but Ortiz is unquestionably heavy-handed: all 14 of his victories have been stoppages and, even before his stunning 2022 upset of fancied prospect Evan Sanchez (whom incidentally hasn’t fought since), Ortiz dropped the now world-rated American Blair Cobbs before being stopped on his stool at the end of the sixth.
Still, Walsh’s picture-perfect stoppage of a game puncher left him under no illusions.
“I feel like, the level I’m at, I should be stopping these fellas,” says the Cobh man. “I need to be doing this.
I’m not celebrating after knocking out… Look, I know, as you said, he has an upset in him or whatever but for the level I’m at, there’s no way he could have beaten me. There was literally no chance of an upset. And I feel I shouldn’t celebrate too much after beating a fella like him. I was supposed to do that.
“He was a tough opponent, whatever, but it went how it should have gone.”
Carlos Ortiz, a 37-year-old lawyer/government official/restaurant owner from Mexico who was set to retire from boxing, wipes out previously unbeaten Golden Boy prospect Evan Sanchez to earn his biggest ever win.
— Gavan Casey (@GavanCasey) June 12, 2022
This is why we stay up until dumb o’clock. pic.twitter.com/WPzXrcpdV7
Mere hours after he closed the show in Cali, Walsh and his girlfriend, UFC star Tabatha Ricci, headed for Cork to catch another one.
The Cobh southpaw had been perusing Ticketmaster a few days earlier to see who would be playing Live at the Marquee during his nine-day stint at home, but the flagship events like Christy Moore had already sold out.
He was bewildered, however, when he spotted a familiar face from across the pond in the Marquee lineup: the stand-up comedian Theo Von, with whom he often crosses paths while attending UFC events.
“He was just thrown in the middle. I was like, ‘I dunno, I think that’s probably fake!’” Walsh laughs. “So, I just text him going, ‘Are you actually going to Cork?’ And he was.
“And that’s actually why I flew the next morning after my fight: just so I could make his show.
“It was very good to be fair. I went into the back afterwards and he was a bit worried about it, alright! He was like, ‘Do you think the Cork crowd liked me?’ I was like, ‘Aw, definitely’ — and everyone I’ve been talking to since, as well, thought he was very good.”
Watching his American friend headline on his turf only further whet Walsh’s appetite to do the same.
Walsh, his legendary trainer Freddie Roach — who previously cornered Steve Collins against Chris Eubank at Millstreet and Páirc Uí Chaoimh — and his highly regarded promoter Tom Loeffler are all keen to stage a boxing event in Ireland.
And following Walsh’s victory over Ortiz, a tweet from UFC president Dana White — Loeffler’s close friend who ostensibly co-promotes Walsh — laid things plain: “Callum Walsh is coming home to Ireland for his next fight!”
The wheels are certainly in motion, but whether Walsh will his Irish debut in Cork, Dublin or elsewhere remains to be seen.
“I can tell ya it’s happening,” Walsh says. “Definitely. It’s 100% happening. My next fight is going to be here in Ireland.
“I don’t know much of the details, really, because obviously I don’t book the venues or any of that, but Dana said it on his social media already: my next fight will be at home, alright.”
As for why he’s so keen to box in Ireland at such a relatively early juncture in his career, Walsh puts it: “Sure, like, I’ve had 11 fights and they’ve all been LA, Boston, New York… and sure my whole career in boxing was built in Ireland, y’know what I mean?
“My whole life, I boxed here. I won six national titles (underage), I won a European gold medal for Ireland (Junior). And a lot of people know me just from when I fought here as an amateur.
“And — I lost my last fight here!” Walsh laughs. “In 2019 or whenever it was, to Aidan Walsh (Olympic medallist). My last fight in Ireland, I lost, so I’d love to come home now and put on a big show.
“I wouldn’t be boxing only for my life in Ireland — and the support I get here is crazy. Even when I’m back home in Cork and I’m walking around, and people are coming up to me saying, ‘I watch your fights…’ The support is massive and I feel like I just need to get back and put on a big show for the people that give me that support.
It’s obviously very expensive to go to LA or go to New York or go wherever. People can’t make it. And so many of those people are people who support my career heavily. I owe them a show that they can actually go to.
Should it come to pass that he boxes next somewhere on home soil, Walsh can expect his phone to blow up — not only from family and friends looking for tickets but from fellow Irish boxers who have been starved of opportunities to fight in their own country.
That will bring its own pressure, but Walsh hopes he can draft a few of his day-one peers onto the bill if or when the time comes.
“I’ll definitely have a bit of a say in the card alright, I’d say. I’ll obviously be asked who I think should be on it, or, ‘What do you think of this fella?’
“We’ll want to do the best card possible and I suppose we’ll want to put the people on it who’ll bring the biggest crowd.
“So, we’ll see, but yeah, I’d like to get Cork boxers on it; people who I grew up training with, people who I’ve always been around. Definitely, I’d like to do that.”
Fittingly, Walsh is currently maintaining his fitness at his boxing alma mater, the Riverstown club in Glanmire, while at home. His girlfriend Tabatha Ricci, ranked 11th in the UFC’s strawweight ladder, has also been doing her boxing sparring at his former club.
They’ll head back to LA on Tuesday, from which point Walsh’s plans are simple: “Just be ready for whenever this homecoming fight is.”
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