Callum Walsh vs. Carlos Ocampo to headline first Zuffa Boxing event on Paramount+

The first main event of the Zuffa Boxing era is set. On Friday, UFC CEO Dana White announced that the Jan. 23 event from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas would be headlined by a junior middleweight bout between Callum Walsh and Carlos Ocampo. The card will stream live on Paramount+ and take place the night before UFC 324 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Walsh (15-0, 11 KO) has been heavily hyped by White for years, with several of Walsh’s fights streamed on UFC Fight Pass. With TKO’s expansion into the boxing world with the new promotion, Zuffa Boxing, Walsh seemed like a sure thing to have been an anchor for the new promotional body, and his headline spot confirms those suspicions.

In September, Walsh spoke to MMA Fighting and claimed the controversial expansion of TKO into boxing was a good thing and that he could never repay what White has done for his career.

“I like Dana,” Walsh said. “Me and Dana have a great relationship. Dana has done so much for my career. He’s done so much for my life in general. I have no way of even repaying him, only by fighting and winning. The things that Dana has done for me, I’ll forever be loyal to Dana, no matter what. I’ll always defend Dana. I’ll always do my best to talk well about him. Because he is a genuine good guy. He does care about the fighters. He does a lot behind the scenes that people don’t see.”

Thus far, Walsh has lived up to the hype, impressively dispatching of a string of lower and mid-tier fighters. He currently sits as the No. 4-ranked junior middleweight by the IBF, as well as No. 5 and No. 13 by the WBC and WBO, respectively.

In his most recent outing, Walsh took a unanimous decision over Fernando Vargas Jr. on the undercard of Terence Crawford’s win over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

In Ocampo (38-3, 26 KO), Walsh faces a man with far more high-level experience, though Ocampo has come up short in his biggest fights.

Ocampo’s three losses have come against Errol Spence Jr. for the IBF welterweight title in 2018, Sebastian Fundora for the WBC interim junior middleweight title in 2022, and Tim Tszyu for the interim WBO title in 2023. Both Spence and Tszyu stopped Ocampo in the first round.

Since the loss to Tszyu, Ocampo has rattled off a trio of stoppage wins against club-level fighters.