Check my dramatics | Brains get splattered | Dreams shattered
Callum Walsh was on his way to becoming one of the biggest names in the World Boxing Council (WBC).
Instead, he’ll spend his competitive prime toiling away in the dark corners of Meta Apex, the facility best known for staging UFC “Fight Night” events to little or no fanfare. That could change with the new addition of seating (see early ticket prices here), but the damage may have already been done.
Blame UFC CEO Dana White and Zuffa Boxing.
“I am sorry for Callum Walsh,“ WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman told BetssonUK. ”He was the WBC Continental Champion and before the WBA USA champion. He’s a very nice kid, very close to me in several times. You look at his Instagram, it’s full of videos and pictures with a WBC belt and saying how proud he is, what his dream is to be the WBC champion one day. And now, joining this new Zuffa [Boxing], he has relinquished his WBC Championship. They put him in a fight, he’s a super welterweight fighter, but Zuffa does not have super welterweight. They only have eight weight categories.“
Walsh, 24, became the first boxer signed by UFC CEO Dana White back in 2023. Fast-forward to 2026 and the Irish “King” is headlining the inaugural Zuffa Boxing card in Las Vegas. Walsh improved to 16-0 by defeating Carlos Ocampo last weekend on Paramount+ “and the result was mediocre.”
“They make them fight at middleweight, and the result was mediocre,” Sulaiman said. “He was dropped. He won a unanimous decision fight, but that’s a perfect example of a bad intervention. A fighter who is in one category, they’re putting him or mandated him to fight, and I am very sorry for Calum Walsh, but I wish him the best of success. We will always have the arms open for him, but it is just one of the examples. There’s too much of a confusion going on.”
White and Co. have refused to work with existing sanctioning bodies — including WBC — and plan to create their own boxing ecosystem (which includes this “illegal” championship belt). Much of Zuffa Boxing’s future depends on whether or not the Muhammad Ali Revival Act becomes law later this year.
“He is such a nice kid, and his dreams are shattered for the time being,” Sulaiman added. “Maybe he will be successful; hopefully, but from what I know him, he just lost the opportunity of being a WBC World Champion, because he’s stepping away from the WBC, and he’s fighting now in an upper weight category, which is not good for him. I don’t know, I wish them well. I don’t want to wish them bad, but if they come and change the law and they go against the fighters, we’re going to defend the fighters, always.”
For more Zuffa Boxing news and notes click here.
Category: General Sports
