[SPEAKER_00]: What is up, everyone?
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to another edition of the Sheen Show with Sean Sheen here on Sharedog.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm absolutely delighted to be joined today by Biadio Ali Walsh, who fights gamut his rev at PFL Austin on July 18th, Biadio.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much for joining me today, how are you, sir?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of problem with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing I want to ask you, I know a lot of people will ask you about your name and the Ali part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will in a minute, but I want to ask you about the watch part of it because I am Irish and I'm here in Ireland and obviously you watch it's a very Irish name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about the Irish side of your family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you a proud Irish man?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I talked to a few people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually call it going to people like that before who are very proud of the Irish side of your family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about that side for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: How much do you know about it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, if you know, a Walsh's Irish show, my dad is so my dad's mom was Sicilian and his father was Irish, and one thing that a lot of people don't know is my grandfather's grandpa is from Dublin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so yeah, Muhammad Ali's grandfather was Irish, so he has Irish in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, I'm always proud of my heritage and we're out from then, you know, Walsh is an Irish name that's my last name.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you heard about it, but Katie Taylor the Irish boxer was announced she's fighting Crow Park our biggest stadium in the summer and the last person to fight there before that was Muhammad Ali he headlined in in Crow Park as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you heard stories about that or is that something you've heard grown off?
[SPEAKER_01]: 100% on my dad was actually just showing me that event that's coming up and it's super exciting man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bet everybody in Ireland are looking forward to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're very proud of a very proud of Katie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also saw you said it was on Instagram this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 10 years since your grandfather died and I wish you my condolences for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was he like I suppose as a grandfather, you know, we all know Muhammad Ali is the star in everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was he like as you for as a grandfather
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was, you know, if you've ever had a grandfather and, you know, you really close with them, it was just the normal, you know, grandson and grandfather experience, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was obviously, he had had Parkinson's disease.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was a little limited in his ability to talk, his ability to walk and stuff like that because of his Parkinson's.
[SPEAKER_01]: but the way we spent so much time with him and the way we would spend time with him was, you know, we would draw and we would color with him because he loved to draw.
[SPEAKER_01]: He liked drawing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes he would draw like a little boxing ring and then draw an audience around him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would draw mountains with like a little light house at the top and with a plane flying by and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would always watch movies too.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he was a really big fan of like wild Western films like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, you know, like the good the bad and the ugly We would watch stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would watch classic horror films like Like a belagosies, you know, Dracula The creature from the black ogoon
[SPEAKER_01]: where we're a wolf man, we would always watch the retro western films and horror movies and that's how we would spend time with him really is we would do that, you know, Nico, my brother, he had a, you know, if you know Muhammad Ali, you know, he loved magic, you know, he would he would always do magic tricks, especially the trick with the hanker shift from the thumb.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was how we would spend time with him as Nico had this Chris Angel mind freak from the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a magic kit and Nico would do magic tricks on Poppy and we would do that to get a reaction out of him and his eyes goes line up and he'd say,
[SPEAKER_01]: main, main, you know, do it again, you know, so that's how we spend time with our grandpa, you know, he was, he was the only grandfather that we had, you know, my, my dad's parents sadly passed away before I was even born.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we didn't really get to know them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was like the only blood grandfather that we had and, you know, my parents insisted and made sure that we were very, very close to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, that's how it's spent time with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the normal, you know, grandson, grandfather experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going to ask you about, you know, we see children, our grandchildren of famous, you know, actors or sports people, or whatever, might be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes, you know, they changed their names that they don't look like living in the shadow of them and so forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the way you spoke so glowingly there about him, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that question even, even a
[SPEAKER_00]: from my side looking at you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something I think you enjoy talking about to you about I'm proud to have my family as your grandfather.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100% you know I love him you know growing up he was like Superman to me you know I don't know if you've seen the old comic of Muhammad Ali vs Superman you know he was bigger than life man like he he's inspired millions and millions of people and
[SPEAKER_01]: You know when you're a little kid you don't you can't really grasp the impact that he really made on the world at that young of an age So you know as I've gotten older and and older and watch more documentaries about human stuff like that You can kind of understand the impact that he really did make but he was always a superhero to me and
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, that's the thing too is, you know, I'm always going to live in his shadow.
[SPEAKER_01]: My brothers were always going to live in his shadow.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there will never be another Muhammad Ali, but the only thing we can do was to strive to be as great as a man as he was.
[SPEAKER_01]: and you know that that's what inspires me and pushes me to be the person that I am and you know his faith and his relationship with God was super close and you know I strive to be like that and but yeah we'll always live in his shadow you know if I was playing tennis they would still be talking about my grandfather of course
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was part of that as well, you know, being a great man, you know, talking about the Ali Act that they're trying to change, I know you come out and spoke about that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, like what are your thoughts on that now that it's kind of past you or about to be past you, you know, I, you know, what do you think he would think of the changes that are being made to us?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my grandfather, he put the act in place to protect fighters and if you're going to change it in a way to where the fighters aren't as protected, you know, you would have to take the name Muhammad Aliya out of there because it's no longer his act, you know, it's this made up thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I stand with the fighters and protecting fighters and if you're going to change
[SPEAKER_01]: Then take his name out of it because that's what he brought in place for was to protect fighters.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I feel about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like a lot of fighters, especially boxers, to don't realize the impact of that act and what it does.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I encourage all fighters and especially boxers out there to kind of do their research on that act because that act really does protect them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of people are afraid to, you know, speak up about it, you know, because it could hurt their career, but, you know, the great people that have done great in this world have always stand up for a cause, so that's where I stand about it and, you know, I'm always for the fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you all was going to be a fighter and all your brother you mentioned him earlier on he's box and obviously as well, and you know extended members of your family have box as well Was it something for you that was all was going to be the path for you or did you what we did you come to in the life To fight him yeah
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, honestly, I never thought I would fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I wouldn't be completely honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: I played football most of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a skater kid before I started playing football.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a little skateboarder, snowboarder.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started playing football and seriously in high school and high school was very, very successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I played for Bishop Gorman High School here in Vegas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we were very successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never lost a football game out of like 54 games.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were three time national champions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one in the country.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it was very successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I went to college and, you know, play football a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was more of a political issue though because, you know, the coaching staff that I committed to got fired before I got there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to use their guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't, I was kind of like invisible coming from this, you know, big high school recruit and then kind of being ignored.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in college football wasn't really working out for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once I was done with football, you know, I,
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of lost track of life, you know, I didn't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not living good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, you know, especially living in Vegas is very easy to kind of get distracted, you know, go out, party, do stupid things and that's where I was, you know, I didn't know what to do with my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very depressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I started training MMA just to stay in shape and kind of have that outlet, you know, you know, growing up as an athlete or whole life, you, and you don't have an outlet anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to use that as an outlet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And eventually I started like getting better and better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I started to fall in love with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember telling my dad, you know, like maybe maybe I get one amateur fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the one turned into four, the four turned into seven, and you know now I have a whole career out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So honestly, you know, the sport kind of just fell into place, you know, God had written it for me, I guess, and I just found a way into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never expected to fight to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always love asking kind of fighters who are younger and you're fighting to your career, you're only major, you're a pro, maybe two years ago and obviously a lot of fights is an amateur as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how do you develop your style?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because like watching, watch back all your fights last night and like some fights obviously very good grappling and you know being guys on the ground, butterflies, it's all boxing and like the last fight of beautiful knockout, a punch to the body and a
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you develop that sign?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you're training with Eric Nixick now as well and I've sparked Eric many times and he's really, really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you go to someone like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is a coaching point?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it your own kind of decision how to develop that sign?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I grew up in a boxing family, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my brothers of Pro Boxer, my aunt was a Pro Boxer, my grandfather was a Pro Boxer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I grew up with boxing kind of like ingrained in my family, really, you know, before football was even a thing, you know, all I watched was boxing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my favorite fighters are actually, you know, that Mexican style fighting of pressure and and come forward, you know, Canelo, who you see your shavas, Marquez, you know, David Benvitas, you know, all these guys are
[SPEAKER_01]: people cruise, you know, all these dudes put on that heavy pressure boxing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I like the fight, you know, um, it's actually kind of funny, you know, like my grandfather fought a certain way, but I fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: completely different, you know, I fight like the guys that beat him, you know, Ken Norton, Joe Frazier, I fight more like those guys and, um, that's just kind of like my style.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where I feel comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel comfortable coming forward and, you know, throwing heavy hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in my amateur career, I was very aggressive coming out there and always coming forward and just, you know, throwing big shots and stuff and I just started, you know, the more and more I train, I just started to develop my style and what works for me and for me what works is, you know, coming forward and throwing hands and that's how I like the fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, obviously in MMA, you have to learn how to wrestle and grapple and order to keep it on the feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: How important was that last for you against Randy Gibbs?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because in boxing, you know, you could have twenty fights before I lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of the way it goes in boxing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And MMA, it's very different.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did list before of fighters who lost in the first ten fights.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, you know, John Jones, Chris Siberg, fed all of the best fighters in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, have lost the fight in their first.
[SPEAKER_00]: to lose and then kind of come back in the way you did against Grundy, where I was kind of maybe if a slow start and then you found your way into that foot and then came out really fast and I was a 46 seconds last time out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like that last would maybe be the best thing that ever happened to you in terms of your career?
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, people some people take losses really really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did take it pretty hard, you know, I expected to win that fight and I lost and I learned so much, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I always say like the L and lost stands for lesson, you know, it's a lesson you learn from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and yeah, I just, you know, sparked a fuse in me and made me want to get better and better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I was in the gym right after a fight after, you know, after that in Chicago and, um, yeah, it was a weird,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I always believe that things happen for a reason and it could be, you know, I have a wild guess that maybe that loss made the next Chicago fight or next Chicago win a whole lot sweeter, you know, so yeah, things happen, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: I play on having like 20 profiles and then seeing where the record is, you know, and just seeing how far I can go in the sport.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never came into the sport like wanting to be a champion or be the best in the world and have all this fame and fortune.
[SPEAKER_01]: I never expected that or wanted that coming into the sport.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I wanted when I first started fighting was to see how far I can go and we're still going.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's see.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think of your reporter coming up on July 18, Camille, his rear, to me, like there isn't much tape in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's only had, I think, was it four, six fights I think he's had.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you watched much tape in him?
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you think this is kind of a step up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you restaurant coming from Dagestan?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or what do you think of his rear?
[SPEAKER_01]: 100% you know he's definitely going to be a challenge.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a great opponent for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe and I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I like That's the thing about this fight is I'm super excited because I feel like there's a an elite level challenge and a good test for me and I want to see where I'm at.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, so I come in to this fight with, you know, I'm not changing my style or anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to still stick to my game plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all staying in the same, but I'm super excited, you know, he's from Dagestan, he's from Russia.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe he's Muslim as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, yeah, dude, I'm super excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, I'm just, I'm excited for this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think when you see, you know, a couple of these fights and he gets a takedown spins the whole round on top, then he gets taken down a winsvoy, a triangle, he's good in kind of all areas, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on the feet, you know, he's tron spinkicks and a step in me, for someone, you know, so young when your career does that, there's a lot to work with there, I suppose, and in opposition, what do you think of all those things together?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, like I think he's a great challenge, I'm going to always become forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not scared to take downs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not scared of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he's coming into the fight expecting me to just move the whole time and run away from the take downs, that's not going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to put pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: My game plan doesn't change.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know what he's going to do, like that's another thing, too, is I know what he's going to try to do, and we're working to capitalize off of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of the two last questions, I really, really appreciate the time, you know, training in Vegas, obviously extreme crouture.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of guys there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who would be the kind of your main trainer partners to prepare for a guy like him?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I mean, obviously the best grapplers in our gym, you know, we got a couple dudes, you know, Blake Monty is he should be having a PFL fight coming up soon, you know, hopefully got willing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is an outstanding wrestler.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I believe he was like a D1 all American or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: outstanding grapplers he always gets me prepared for one fight in the wrestler Jeremy Kennedy is another great guy who's a very high level in this grappling Kobe fair is another dude who is an outstanding grappler and he helps get me prepared we have another kid named Noah who's up in coming right now who's
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, all of my training partners are mostly wrestlers wrestling, dominant, and grapplers, and those are the guys I'm working with right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I always tell them, you know, like, I want you to shoot as many times as you can, and they do that and it helps me out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, that's what's going to give me a prepare for this fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the last thing I want to ask you, you know, you said earlier and you kind of came into your career with no expectations.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I suppose, you know, five years into your pro career and a lot of managers, what are expectations now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like in in tree or time of I'm talking to you, like is it is it going to be world championship?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do you expect to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where do you expect to get in your MMA career?
[SPEAKER_01]: What I expect is, dude, honestly, like, I'm so much more focused on putting on exciting fights, you know, I'm always coming into win, of course, but I want excitement, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I want the crowd to be like, like, when they see me fight, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want them to know it's going to be a banger, you know, because when you do that, you draw in eyes, right, and you draw in views, and especially in today's world with social media and everything, eyes and views matter the most.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm trying to do, you know, obviously, you know, it's given that I'm coming in to try to win.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want to be exciting, you know, if that leads me to being a champion, then that's what God had wrote.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that leads me to just being an exciting fighter and putting on exciting fights and sometimes having wins, sometimes having losses, then that's what God had
[SPEAKER_01]: the the future is always a question mark and that's another thing that people I feel like I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like
[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody knows the future.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not even my grandfather's confidence he was.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know what would happen when he would fight Sunday listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't know what would happen when he fought George Forman.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you have the confidence and, you know, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win.
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost like you do know, but nobody knows the future.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the truth, and I like to stick to the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what I accept, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I like to accept the fact that I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And whatever happens is what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I come in and, you know, if me being a champion of futures, what happens, and that's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely love that, Badger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much for your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: July 18th, P.F.
[SPEAKER_00]: L.S.
[SPEAKER_00]: and WatchBadger is next fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can scams it.
[SPEAKER_00]: His rear, thank you very much for time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you everyone for tuning in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you all next time.