Kevin Walsh admits his bout with Michael Conlan represents a considerable step up in competition.
Conlan, a decorated former amateur star and two-time world title challenger, will be boxing in front of a partisan crowd this Friday at SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
“Absolutely, man,” the 19-0 (10 KOs) Walsh admitted to BoxingScene about the move up in class. “And I feel as ready as I can be. I’m in the best shape of my life. Every single fight that I go into, I always make sure that I’m in the best shape of my life.
“We’re just gonna have to see come fight night. I’d say Michael Conlan is a beast. He's an animal. He’s fast. He’s a very technical, very skilled boxer. [It’s a] big test, big step up for me. And I can’t wait for the challenge. I'm excited for the challenge for sure.”
The 33-year-old, from Brockton, Massachusetts, started boxing late, turning pro only in 2021.
Without the intervention of boxing, Walsh fears what might have become of him.
“Boxing has definitely saved me,” he insisted. “I took the wrong route of life when I was in my late teenage years from, 16, 17. My father passed away when I was 17 years old and after that I went the wrong way in life.
“I got into some trouble. I went to jail a few times and all I could really think about was what could I do to change my life – to switch the lane.”
Walsh always felt boxing could be an option.
When he got into serious trouble in his early twenties for robberies and home invasions, he knew that a change was needed in order to survive.
Becoming world champion sounded like a nice alternative to his life at the time.
“When I was in jail, I told myself when I get out of here, I’m going to start boxing and I’m going to stay focused.”
His life took a drastic turn and 10 years on he’s 33 and 19-0, and ready for the biggest fight of his career.
His longest spell inside was around a year. The crime path took him to selling drugs, admiring “the wrong people” and getting involved in gangs – “just doing stupid things that I’m not really proud of, but at the end of the day, it made me who I am today” – but he sees a lot of “that street life” in the boxing life he now leads.
“It wasn’t easy,” he says, referring to both journeys. “The road was never easy. I was fighting adversity and it didn’t just take me one day to change my life. It didn’t just take me a month, not even six months, not even a year. I was battling that street life for some time, back and forth. I told myself I would never do this stuff again.
“But then again, I was still a teenager. I was still like 18, 19 going into my early twenties when I was living that lifestyle. Even at the beginning of my boxing career, when I started my amateur boxing career at the age of 22 years old, I was still kind of in the streets and it wasn’t easy to me. It [the transition] wasn’t overnight. I didn’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna switch. I’m going to change.’ And it just happened like that.
Walsh continued: “It took a lot of trials and tribulations. I’ve been to jail a few times. You know, I went to, after going to DYS, after that, I went to the big boy prison a few times and I did like three months here, three months here, three months there.
“I fought a few different cases and, man, it didn’t just happen overnight and it wasn’t easy. It was a tough journey. That’s definitely a part of the way I am, fighting through adversity, fighting adversity. I just feel like that’s definitely a part of the reason why I’m such a good, talented fighter too. I feel like I bring a lot of that stuff inside the ring as well.”
While he says the streets will never be able to reclaim him fully, he will always be part of them. He still lives in Brockton, but he tries to represent his community in a positive way.
“I try to use my story to change lives out there, with the youth, even older people, even the older crowd, people that were in the street life with me,” noted Walsh. “I see them out there still to this day out there, but they look up to me and I feel like a part of my story helps them still. It still helps them to this day. Nobody’s perfect out there.
“And I understand that. I’m still not perfect. But at the end of the day, I feel like I’ll always be a gangster in a way for sure. Absolutely. But that’s just a part of who I am, you know?”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
