Ryan Walsh steps into the boxing ring for pro fight number 36 this weekend - Chris Lakey sat down with him to discuss the fight, and life in general 

'It's not my job. It's never been my job. It's not even my career. This is my passion' - Ryan Walsh

 

It’s not often that a sporting interviewee quotes Aristotle, Nietzsche and the Incredible Hulk. Not in the same interview. Not without blinking.

But not all sports interviewees are like Ryan Walsh.

You can throw all your boxing stereotypes into the spit bucket when the man from Cromer is sitting opposite you answering questions about his next fight.

First off, we need to get the excitement factor out of the way: even at 38 years of age, Walsh never tires of the fight cycle – from the preparations and build-up, to the countdown of the final week and then fight night. Walsh has been doing this since he was 21 years old, alongside twin brother Liam and older brother Michael. It isn’t new to him, it just never gets old.

He’s a veteran of 35 fights – “It should have been 50”, he says – and that’s probably why he is still going strong now.

“This is the most excited I've ever been for a fight ever,” he says as we discuss Sam Noakes at Wembley on Saturday night. But why now, this far down the career line?

“Age I think – as you get older, you get a little bit wiser to the illusion of time. Time is an illusion, right? We created it, it didn’t exist, so these moments that you think about, dream about, manifest, you get to hold them a little bit longer.”

Walsh’s last fight – a first-round win over Reece Mould – is a reference point.

“Everyone could see what I did at the end. I slowed everybody down as much as I could have. I'm a control freak, so when I see how happy Graham (Everett), Joe (Everett), Steve, both my brothers, I was just ‘whoa, whoa, just hold it’ so I could bask. And then before I knew it, I'm now in this fight and I just am envisioning and I am just so excited.”

Excited because Walsh has control of what might happen, what he wants to make happen.

“Exactly. And as you get more aware, you realise that in my career so far these opportunities, these moments are few and far between. I've only had 35 fights. I've told you before, I should had 50 of these nights. So every time I get an extra one, it's a bonus.

“Youth is wasted on the young, and I think I've got a really young mind and attitude. But at the same time, I'm old enough and wise enough to start realising, this is my passion, so I'm pursuing my passion … how lucky am I? I am blessed beyond anything to be able to do that.

“And I just love winning anything. I do love to win. It’s a winner stays on mentality – and I don’t want to get off. Anything I do I play to win. I don't play for fun, I played to win and that's the fun bit.

“Aristotle said: ‘We are what we repeatedly do… therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit’.

“I have built the best habits over the last quarter of a century that I've been doing this.” 

Walsh heads to Wembley on Saturday before a celebratory trip to Rome

“I've got some great news as well. Talk about excitement - I found out within probably a week, two weeks of pretty much signing for this fight that my girlfriend, Cara, we've been together for two years, is pregnant. It’s great news all round. It's her birthday day after the fight. I've never had so much pressure on me, in a good way.”

“I believe in balance, that's what I believe in. Everyone’s had rough time. For all the negativity and things that made me who I am, I am older and wiser to the fact that I've been in a different place, mentally, physically - I lost a world title fight, I lost my nephew, and a relationship of 20 years - all in a short space of time. And look where I am now.

“There's a great quote – just when you think you're being buried, you’re actually being planted.”

It’s perhaps an apt way to end, given Walsh's career has produced such a well-deserved growth spurt that perhaps surprises everybody... except him and those close to him.