![\"Muhammad](\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/HhInaSqDbtc\/maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNico Ali Walsh knew this would be a process. The 22-year-old middleweight just got his bachelor\u2019s degree in business entrepreneurship from UNLV in May. He juggled his classes with his boxing training. Now, he\u2019s plunging his entire focus into boxing. On Saturday, he\u2019ll be embarking on his seventh pro fight and first six-rounder when he takes on 29-year-old Billy Wagner on the undercard of the\u00a0Vasiliy Lomachenko-Jamaine Ortiz\u00a0lightweight main event in the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York (ESPN+ 10 p.m. ET\/7 p.m. PT).<\/p>\n
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Ali Walsh, the grandson of Muhammad Ali, says he\u2019s learning more each time he steps into the ring. Often you hear in sports that somebody \u201cleft their game in the gym\u201d or at the practice facility. In boxing, what a fighter may work on in the gym does not always translate into the ring. Ali Walsh (6-0, 5 knockouts) says he\u2019s taking higher percentages of his training into his fights. He\u2019s on a modest three-fight stoppage streak, having beaten Jeremiah Yeager (TKO 2),\u00a0Alejandro Ibarra (KO 1)\u00a0and Reyes Sanchez (KO 2) within the distance.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSince the Yeager fight, that\u2019s when my stuff really started transferring from the gym to the fight, because I\u2019ve been trying to focus on that so much,\u201d said Ali Walsh, the son of Robert Walsh and Rasheda Ali, Muhammad Ali\u2019s second-oldest child, two-and-a-half minutes older than Rasheda\u2019s twin sister, Jamillah. \u201cI would say about 60 percent translated over (from gym training to the fight), and before that it was around 55 percent. The Sanchez fight it was about 65 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ali Walsh is now being trained by Kay Komora, who took over for Richard T. Slone, the boxing artist and cutman\u00a0who worked Nico\u2019s corner\u00a0for the Yeager and Ibarra fights. Komora, who also trains Mikaela Mayer among other fighters, began working extensively with Ali Walsh in his last two fights.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach Kay brings out my ring IQ more than anything and the gameplan behind fighting, because it\u2019s more than just about fighting,\u201d said Ali Walsh. \u201cYou can fight all day. Everyone knows by now I can fight in a telephone booth for hours. That\u2019s not impressive to me, and not impressive to coach K, either. Knowing your shots, placing your shots, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been working on.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Muhammad](\"https:\/\/www.ringtv.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Nico_Ali_Walsh_vs_Jordan_Weeks_action2.jpg\")
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Ali Walsh admits he does not know much about Billy Wagner. He does know that Wagner (5-2, 1 KO) is tough and that he\u2019ll be walking into the ring with special incentive on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone brings a new challenge, but like I said many times before, whoever I fight brings the best versions of themselves, because on fight night, it\u2019s me, and they want to be able to beat an \u2018Ali,\u2019\u201d Nico said. \u201cI get it. We\u2019ll see what he brings the night of the fight. The way I\u2019ve been training, any kind of problems he brings, I\u2019ll be ready for them. After my last fight, I was back in the gym on Monday. It\u2019s almost like a weakness. I can\u2019t keep myself away from the gym.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I\u2019ve been training, this is going to be my best performance yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nico Ali Walsh knew this would be a process. The 22-year-old middleweight just got his bachelor\u2019s degree in business entrepreneurship from UNLV in May. He juggled his… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7321,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7319\/revisions\/7321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbiz.thongtinluat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}