Callum Walsh's home comforts ahead of Saturday's headline bout may include 'goat yoga'
WHEN CALLUM WALSH last picked up the phone to The 42 ahead of his first-round knockout of Dean Sutherland on St Patrick's weekend, wildfires were raging through his adopted hometown of Los Angeles.
As he jumps on a call to chat about his headline bout against Elias Espadas in Santa Ynez this Saturday, LA is once more prominent in the global news cycle: Ice's immigration raids have sparked protests and some of those protests have metastasised into unrest, the scale of which appears to vary between small beer and apocalyptic depending on the political lens through which one views it.
But given the degree to which the nation's flag has emblematised defiance on one side of the barricade, it could be argued that June 2025 is not the ideal time for Walsh to fight a Mexican in California.
World-rated light-middleweight Walsh, though, is quick with his counter.
'Ah, sure, look… I'm an immigrant too, y'know what I mean?' he laughs.
Callum Walsh destroys Scotland's Dean Sutherland (previously 19-1, 7KOs) in the first round of their Madison Square Garden headliner.
Savagery by the Cork man, who improves to 13-0 (11KOs) with a highlight-reel finish. pic.twitter.com/a6bvUHaE2x — Gavan Casey (@GavanCasey) March 17, 2025
On paper, Saturday's opponent at the Chumash Casino is a sideways step for 24-year-old prospect Walsh [13-0, 11KOs], who took less than a round to dispose of Scottish test Dean Sutherland (previously 19-1, 7KOs) in a downstairs Madison Square Garden headliner on 16 March.
Elias Espadas' record reads as a decent 23-6-1, his 16 knockout wins proof enough that the 'Latin Kid' from Yucatán, Mexico, isn't one for beating around the bush when he senses vulnerability.
To read between the lines of Espadas' career, though, is to reveal a few further points of concern. He has boxed the majority of his bouts nearer the middleweight limit than Walsh's division of light-middle. In his last outing in April, he fought one of the Cork man's contemporaries — the hard-hitting Kazakh, Sadriddin Akhmedov [previously 15-0, 13KOs] — to a draw.
Plus, the financial reward for facing a boxer of Walsh's profile is such that the 34-year-old has been able to afford to prepare full-time for their encounter. Two have two full training camps in such quick succession is a rarity for boxers below title contention and Espadas will doubtless enter the ring on Saturday in an unprecedented condition, physically and mentally.
As such, if anyone has any issues with promoter Tom Loeffler's choice of opponent for Walsh this weekend, the Cobh native doesn't want to hear them.
'Whether it's sideways, backwards, whatever kind of a step it is, it's still a man that's training to beat me, and he's coming off a good fight where he got a draw against a 15-0 prospect,' Walsh says. 'He's literally just shown that he's capable of causing an upset, d'you know what I mean?
'He has a lot of experience and I'm getting him off back-to-back camps, so this is the best he's ever going to be: right now. And I understand that.
'I think after this fight, depending on how it goes, obviously… if I get it done nice and easy, I'll 100% be pushing to fight somebody that's undefeated, a prospect or someone else that's coming up alongside me, to show how much better I am than everyone else. But at the end of the day, we need to see how this fight goes.'
Walsh switches his phone to the car speaker as he prepares to drive to training. He can't be late for Freddie Roach, the Hall of Fame coach who took a punt on Walsh when the young Irishman blagged his way from Cobh to the door of the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood at the height of Covid restrictions four years ago.
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There's a buzz in the gym of late, Walsh says, with the return of Manny Pacquiao: the legendary Filipino, now 46, has come out of retirement to challenge Mario Barrios in a welterweight world-title bout next month.
Walsh has barely seen Pacquiao at all, however: Roach has put his stars past and present on separate training schedules to maximise the time he can spend with each of them.
Roach's newer protégé, however, was on hand to greet an impromptu guest to the Wild Card last week, and one with whom he may have his own conflict of interests.
'Ah, you know what, he's actually a very nice fella, to be fair,' Walsh says of English star Conor Benn, who recently lost a compelling middleweight grudge match with Chris Eubank Jr having moved up from welterweight.
'It was actually my media day ahead of this fight. I didn't even know he was coming but we actually had a good conversation, we were there talking for a while.
'He looked at me and he was like, 'Oh, so who's in your weight class?' And I was like, 'You are! I fight at 154 [pounds].'
Suffice to say that the five-foot-eight Benn, who will likely settle into the same division having reshaped his musculature to take on Eubank, didn't like the cut of his six-foot-tall potential opponent of the future.
'He was like, 'Fuck that! I'm going back down to 147.'' Walsh laughs.
'Ah, I was only messing around with him. It was cool. He was very respectful and not very [antagonistic]. Nice guy.'
Callum Walsh, Conor Benn and Walsh's promoter, Tom Loeffler.
Having headlined in New York on St Patrick's weekend, flying in a couple of weeks early to acclimatise to both the time difference and the weather, Walsh's bout with Espadas will take place just an hour's drive from the home he shares with his girlfriend, UFC star Tabatha 'Baby Shark' Ricci.
But home comforts for Walsh will scarcely breed complacency: he has, in recent months, accidentally become a farmer, as will be evident if you are among his 209,000 Instagram followers.
'I like to stay busy, y'know?' Walsh says. 'Every time I get home from the gym, I don't like to just sit down on the couch or whatever. I just, like… I'm going constantly.'
It all started with a dog which he and Tabatha rescued from a local animal shelter about two years ago.
'He was an older dog, a pitbull who'd had a bad life, and he couldn't be around other dogs. I felt bad for him so I took him home,' Walsh says.
'I got a trainer to work with the dog, and then we got a new puppy, and they're now best friends — so this dog that couldn't be around other dogs has a best friend and a good life.
'Then there was a whole chicken thing going on in LA there a while back,' Walsh adds. 'Eggs were a crazy price, so Tabatha and I were like, 'Look, we have the space for them, we have a big house and a big garden, so let's get a few chickens.
'And then those few chickens turned into these two goats…'
Walsh, who comes from no farming stock to speak of, wound up building from hand a smallholding in his back garden where his ever-growing stable of animals now resides.
'They all get along, to be fair. The goats get along unbelievably well with the dogs. The goats and the chickens get along great. The only ones that don't get along are the dogs and the chickens'. (Walsh and Tabatha learned this to devastating effect during an accidental crossover a few weeks ago).
'I probably like animals more than I like people,' Walsh explains. 'I go home and they're just there, just there doing their thing: the chickens are laying eggs, the goats are just walking around being funny… The goats are honestly hilarious, like.
'This new thing is 'goat yoga' — I don't know if you've seen any of that but it's where people are doing yoga and goats are jumping on top of them. And if I crouch down anywhere in the garden to pick something up, the goats are up on my back.
'They love me because I've had them since they were babies, y'know? I had to bottle-feed them for a couple of months so, anywhere I go, they just walk behind me.
'I can never be bored now because I always have stuff to do. I'm always outside, tipping away. It's kind of relaxing, too, when you're in camp like I am now, and you can just head home and chill out with the few animals.
'And as anyone would know', Walsh says, 'the best thing in the world is when you're after a long day of sparring or training, or you're just tired, and you come home and the dogs are so happy to see you. There's never a day when the dogs are not happy to see you, y'know what I mean?'
Walsh, who has knocked out his last three opponents inside a combined five rounds, reckons 'man-strength' at 24, as well as his training regimen with Roche, has imbued his punch power off each hand. Add farm-strength to the equation and there may be no stopping him.
Already world-rated after just 13 pro fights, the Cobh southpaw doesn't need to be rushed. But Saturday's examination against the more seasoned Espadas, live on UFC Fight Pass (Sunday morning Irish time), is a box that needs ticking if he is to continue his ascent.
'I think it's all just coming together at at at a good time,' Walsh says. 'I'm very young still, and I think I have a lot more to offer in the future.
'I think I'm going to continue to get stronger and stronger and who knows if people will even let me fight down the road, y'know?'
Walsh laughs. 'What happens if I get too strong?'
Watch Callum Walsh v Elias Espadas on Saturday night/Sunday morning Irish time live on UFC Fight Pass.
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