Cassius Walker-Hunt Aims To Make History After Taking Notes From Anthony Joshua and Fraser Clark 

I sat down to interview Cassius Walker-Hunt to ask him about his exciting year ahead.

Cassius Walker-Hunt has everything in place to be a Welsh sports star in 2023. Named after one of the greatest boxers of all time Cassius Clay, also known as Mohammad Ali, it’s clear that Walker-Hunt was destined for the sporting world.

He’s got the family background covered, with his cousins Eli Walker and Jazz Richards just some of those who have represented Wales at the highest level in sport.

Besides sport, he’s an active member of the Port Talbot community and is even involved in a clothing brand, alongside his father Nigel Hunt and celebrity Michael Locke ‘Pancho’ from Dirty Sanchez.

Walker-Hunt, who won the elite 92kg Welsh Championship in 2021 and then retained his title in April this year, hopes the experience he’s gained from sparring with Anthony Joshua and Frazer Clark can help him to make history next year by winning his third Welsh National Championship.

The 26-year-old hasn’t had it all go his way but hopes the opportunity to watch Joshua up close during their sparring session can help the Port Talbot boxer finally achieve his dreams and represent Wales at a major level.

Walker-Hunt was brought first into Frazer Clark’s training camp, a former Commonwealth Games Champion in 2018 and a Bronze medallist at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

He then joined Joshua’s training camp in Sheffield to spar ahead of Joshua’s rematch against Oleksandr Usyk, a world champion in two weight classes from Ukraine.

The chance to learn from one of the best boxers in the world came as a surprise to Walker-Hunt, but he was keen to soak up as much as he could from the two-time former Unified Heavyweight Champion Joshua as he aims to finally break into the Welsh squad after being overlooked for so long.

Walker-Hunt, a 6 ft 2 Southpaw and two times elite Welsh national champion at 92kg, said:

“AJ was looking for sparring partners before the Usyk fight. My coach Nigel Davies was a GB coach at the London and Beijing Olympics, he’d coached the likes of Joshua, Clark, Nicola Adams and many more, so they had a relationship there.

“It was all about getting the experience in the ring against one of the best heavyweight boxers in the world. I learnt a lot in there, I saw what type of standard it takes to be at that level.

“He just tried the new tactics in there with me. It was great to see how he trains and how he handles things, he’s a great person. To mention me in the press conference before the fight was just priceless, it shows how classy he is.

“He is a lovely person; I was very lucky to have soared so many rounds with him. I’m incredibly grateful.”

With a name like his, Walker-Hunt was always destined to box; his family have a strong history interlinked with boxing, so it was only a matter of time until Cassius stepped into the ring himself.

 

“Both sides of my family are fighters. My mother’s father, Gerald Walker, was a professional boxer in America and my father’s grandfather was a boxer who used to fight in the booths with Tommy Farr,” said the 26-year-old.

“When I was a little boy, everybody used to ask me if I was a boxer. I got so fed up with everyone asking that I joined a gym and started to box, I loved it.

“I was about 8 or 9 the first time I went to a boxing gym. I remember going in, and the smell of sweat just hit me. I was thinking ‘what is going on here’ and ended up loving it.

“I remember going to the gym at 13 and I wasn’t taking boxing really seriously. My coach Nigel Davies had come back for the weekend from coaching team GB. He saw my enthusiasm and enjoyment in the gym straight away.

“He told me that I could be a Welsh Champion one day. Ever since then I believed I had the talent to do it.”

While Walker-Hunt is coming off the back of bitter disappointment, he is still hopeful. Despite becoming two-time Welsh Champion at 92kg, he failed to make the Team Wales Boxing squad for the Commonwealth Games, losing in the under 92kg category at GB Elite Three Nations in Cardiff to Pat Brown.

But can he push on and break into the Welsh Boxing set up, which has so far seemed reluctant to give Walker-Hunt a chance on the international stage?

“I am staying in the amateurs. I want to try and get to a big tournament with Wales, like the European Championships or the Commonwealth Games. I am just patiently biding my time to try and force myself into the Wales set up and then maybe the GB camp,” Walker-Hunt added.

“It has been frustrating at times, getting so close, but I will be going for the Welsh heavyweight title again. I am going for my third win, I want to be up there in the history books, so hopefully I can get that done, that would be special.”

That competitive spirit and self-belief it seems is a family trait, with a number of Walker-Hunt’s relatives also being hugely successful in other sporting arenas.

“My uncle, who is also called Gerald Walker, played basketball and football for Wales. He was a big role model of mine growing up.

“My cousin Eli Walker represented Wales in rugby, he played for Ospreys. My other cousins Solomon and Issiah both play Basketball for Wales and Chantelle Walker-Jones played for Wales netball last season. My other cousin Jazz Richards also played for Swansea, Cardiff and Wales.”

Walker-Hunt is as close to his roots as you could imagine, fighting out of his local boxing club Cwmavon Bees at the amateur level, and is flying the flag for Port Talbot alongside Joshua John and Geraint Goodridge, as they hope to follow in Port Talbot great Billy Beynon’s iconic footsteps.

His family are inextricably linked to the rich history of Port Talbot and the town’s growing creative side. Following redundancy from the Steelworks, his father Nigel Hunt created the popular clothing brand ‘San Portablo’ alongside Dirty Sanchez member ‘Pancho’. The beginning of ‘San Portablo’ coincided with a boom in art and design in the town following an unexpected visit from ‘Banksy’.

A former furnace rebuilder at the Port Talbot steelworks, Walker-Hunt said: “The name is a play on words from Port Talbot; the old sailors used to call it San Portablo. It was created to bring a positive light to the local area. It’s a shame that it has a lot of negativity thrown at it; it’s a poor area and people are struggling here.

“My mother is a second-generation Welsh lady, she was born to Jamaican parents who came here in the 60’s during Windrush. It was great growing up with my Jamaican grandparents around, the culture, the food. They do say Jamaica is the tropical Welsh Island, It’s just Wales with a lot of sun.”