Biaggio Ali Walsh Reflects on Spectacular Performance at 2023 PFL 2: I Actually Wanted to Show off My Wrestling

Biaggio Ali Walsh passed his second Professional Fighters League test with flying colors, but sounded a bit disappointed that he didn’t show off his wrestling.

It took less than two minutes for Ali Walsh to stop Isaiah Figueroa in their 155-pound tilt at 2023 PFL 2. In what turned out to be a striking contest, Ali Walsh displayed his boxing pedigree — he is the grandson of former boxing heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, after all — and forced the referee to show mercy at the 1:42 mark of Round 1 thanks to a thunderous right hook. While talking with Sherdog about his performance, the Las Vegas native confessed he would have loved to prove he’s more than a striker by wrestling a bit with his foe in front of his home crowd, but preferred to take home a victory the moment it presented itself to him. In the future, fans might be surprised to see a different side of Ali Walsh’s offensive arsenal as the fighter vows to implement his “Khabib Nurmagomedov” style.

“I actually wanted to show off my wrestling this fight, but um, sometimes you got to just stick to what you know. I was talking to one of my teammates about it too, and my coach and I'm like, ‘I wanted to wrestle, like I want to wrestle, I want to ‘Khabib’ people, I want to show that I'm not just a striker, and they’re like, ‘Forget what everybody else thinks. There's always going to be an opportunity. I mean, this is mixed martial arts, there’s always an opportunity to grapple or wrestle or box, kickbox. There's always an opportunity for that, every fight almost. Just wait for that opportunity and then when the opportunity comes, then people will be able to see that you can wrestle, you can grapple.’”

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:11) Scoring another first-round stoppage
(00:52) His mindset
(01:20) Fighting in his home city, Las Vegas, for the first time
(02:08) His supporters
(02:54) Defeating Figueroa
(04:45) Aiming to showcase his wrestling skills
(05:59) The story behind the tattoo underneath his shoulder blade
(07:43) Staying busy in 2023
(08:43) Handling the pressure ahead of his second PFL fight
(12:21) Outro