It wasn’t supposed to happen, but Nico Ali Walsh insists it was fate.
Nico, the grandson of Muhammad Ali, was packing for his first professional fight in Cleveland. He had custom white trunks with “Nico” written on them made for the fight, but he was going to pick them up in Cleveland. As a precaution, his trainer told him to bring an extra pair of white shorts in case his new ones weren’t ready.
As the middleweight searched for a backup pair, he realized the only other pair of white shorts he owned were his grandfather’s, which were passed down to him when Ali died in 2016. Ali sported the look for a majority of his fights throughout his career — white trunks with black trim and the “Everlast” logo around the waist. Nico didn’t expect to wear them, instead hoping to cherish the shorts as a memento to remember his grandfather.
When he arrived in Cleveland, his new shorts weren’t ready. When he tried on his grandfather’s pair and started to move around in them, they felt natural around his legs. With no other option, Nico donned his grandfather’s famous colors.
“I just think it was fate, but it wasn’t intentional or planned in any way,” Nico told The Post.
It was Nico’s first time stepping through the ropes and fighting in front of a real, large crowd as a professional, which he described as “nothing on earth is more nerve-wracking than the first fight.” He handled himself admirably, however, defeating Jordan Weeks via a first-round TKO.
Nico is now 2-0 in his young career, and faces his next challenge in the form of Reyes Sanchez on the Vasiliy Lomachenko-Richard Commey main card at Madison Square Garden Saturday night.
No, Nico doesn’t plan on wearing the shorts again — they are too special to him. But on the first night of his professional career, a night that featured a lot of nerves and emotions, he got some help along the way.
“It was so special,” Nico said. “I felt like my grandfather was alive that night, it really felt like that.”