Ali stressed to him the importance of moving and dancing, part of an arsenal that made him stand out from so many fighters before or since. He used to show videos of his training and sparring to his grandfather, who died in 2016. He only turned pro in August and his middleweight fight Saturday against Reyes Sanchez (6-0) is scheduled for only four rounds. 'So everything happened for a reason and those were some of the greatest fights in all of boxing, one of the best trilogies in all of boxing.'Īli Walsh, 21, is a long way from anything like that. 'If he didn't lose that fight, if he won that fight, then we wouldn't have gotten 'The Thrilla in Manila,' we wouldn't have gotten the second fight even with Joe Frazier,' Ali Walsh said. But he noted that some good came from the defeat, which Ali avenged at the Garden in 1974 before winning their epic rubber match in the Philippines. Wearing a 'Fight of the Century' shirt during a tour of the venue, Ali Walsh said it was tough to see the picture of Frazier's powerful punch that dropped his grandfather. Frazier knocked Ali down in the 15th round and won a unanimous decision to retain his heavyweight title and hand Ali his first loss. He fought eight times at the Garden, winning all of them except his first fight with Frazier on March 8, 1971. 'It's fantastic, just to have fans in the building for all of our events,' said Joel Fisher, MSG's executive vice president of marquee events and operations. But the New York Knicks and Rangers have long been back, concerts have returned and now it's boxing's turn. The smaller Theater inside Madison Square Garden has staged three cards, but this is the first inside the big room since the coronavirus pandemic prevented and then limited the amount of fans who could attend events. So, I'm just continuing history and this is just a real, real special time.' 'Like I said, it's not just special because I'm a boxer, this is my career. It's amazing, it's really special,' Ali Walsh said. 'I never imagined that this would happen. He looked like any other tourist checking out the inside of the famed arena Wednesday - except his name hung high above in lights, just as the Ali name had when Muhammad Ali and later Laila Ali fought there. It is headlined by Vasiliy Lomachenko's lightweight bout against Richard Commey.Īli Walsh, who grew up in Las Vegas, had never been to New York until this week. Ali Walsh (2-0, 2 KOs) fights during the first big boxing card back at Madison Square Garden in two years.

Ali walsh