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Ryan Walsh started 2024 as British boxing’s forgotten man. He gets the chance to end it as Britain’s top lightweight.
After dropping a decision to an in-form Maxi Hughes in 2022, Walsh spent more than two years scratching around for an opportunity to prove that he is still a legitimate threat.
In September, Walsh was finally given the opportunity and grasped it by knocking out Reece Mould inside a round.
That win earned him another unexpected chance. On Saturday, Walsh takes on the red hot Sam Noakes for the British and Commonwealth lightweight titles.
Suddenly – at 38-years-old – everything Walsh has wanted is landing at his feet and he can’t believe how his luck has changed.
“One phone call was shocking, two was unbelievable,” Walsh, 29-4-2 (13 KOs), told BoxingScene.
“I get phone calls to fight and it’s like, ‘Yes.’ Graham [Everett, his trainer] has been putting my name out and nothing was said. Yeah, I had a keep busy four rounder but the phone did not then ring for eight months.There was nothing really plausible to do.
“Of course, there’s the stupid business nonsense phone calls, which are no use to anybody, but real phone calls? None. This was real.”
Walsh is a real fighter and if a real fight breaks out this weekend, he certainly won’t try and avoid it.
He has enjoyed a successful career and reigned as the British featherweight champion for almost five years. He has beaten some top level fighters and been outpointed by slick, tricky southpaws but he has spent his career looking for the man capable of meeting him in the middle of the ring and pushing him to his physical and mental limit.
Noakes, 15-0 (14 KOs), has been on a tear. The fight with Walsh will be his fourth of a successful year and he has hoovered up the domestic titles and won the European belt. For the most part, he has done it in his now familiar, rampaging style. Noakes starts at a high pace and ramps it up steadily as the rounds pass.
Walsh isn’t expecting Noakes to temper his approach at all this weekend but he doesn’t think the 27-year-old’s particular brand of pressure, power and aggression will be enough to beat him.
“Sam cannot do anything else. I’ve watched everything he does. I don’t wanna undersell him,” Walsh said.
“He’s got one agenda just to pretty much destroy you. I love the style. It’s exciting. It’s good to watch as a boxing fan but I watched him in the gym with my brother the other day and I looked at him and my brother looked at me and we went, ‘That’s not a world champion.That’s not world class.’ That can’t beat me. That’s the minimum requirement to beat me. You have to be world class. And Sam Noakes isn’t world class and I’m going to show that.
“And he is world class if he can beat me. I’m the perfect opponent for him to prove he’s world class. Because I know that’s what it takes.”
Part of being a world class involves being able to cater tactics for different opponents and if Noakes does have the ability to succeed at the highest level, he may just tread a little more carefully than normal after seeing the ferocious way Walsh blew through Mould. Noakes showed that he can box smartly by outboxing French veteran Yvan Mendy in April but is clearly happier when he can fight with the handbrake off.
Walsh thrives in chaos and believes that he is more than capable of beating the younger man however he chooses to approach it.
“In a sense, he’s not just wild with his destruction. I will give him that,” Walsh said.
“He’d be wise to do that, but he could be hyped. You don’t know. All I prefer to do is try to be in the moment and hope that that guy who turned up with Reece turns up again.
“He has done a few times, and when he does, I’m not in control anymore. It’s a flow state. An out-of-body experience where Sam will meet his worst nightmare because his worst nightmare is me and my style.
“I’ve got much better feet, I’m a lot faster, I’m a lot more experienced, and he has one way. I think I have three or four different ways, two and three different types of styles. There’s a lot of ways I can win this fight.”
Walsh stayed dedicated to the sport throughout his lean spell and certainly doesn’t plan on walking away anytime soon, particularly since things are finally moving in his favour. If stopping Mould caused ripples of excitement within boxing’s hardcore circles, beating Noakes would be a major result and would put him in contention for some even bigger fights.
“This is the thing that I love about boxing and it has always been this way. They’re coining a new term aren’t they? ‘Winner stays on.’” Walsh said.
“Boxing has always been that. Boxing has always been human conkers.That’s why when you beat people, you take everything off them. You take who they’ve beat. It’s really strange in boxing but it does happen like that for me.
“I’ve always thought that. You look at Maxi [Hughes]’s run of 10 wins. My brother, Liam, beat him easy. So that now all looks good for Liam, doesn’t it? Do you see what I mean?
“And it happened with me with James Tennyson. He went on to win loads of titles, fought for a world title and I always feel pride that I beat him. And I beat him as good as a world champion, if not better, in my own humble opinion because both of us stopped him in the fifth round [Tennyson was stopped by then IBF champion, Tevin Farmer, in 2018]. So it’s good.
“I think that’s what I love about boxing. It is human conkers. It really is.”
John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79