Outside Source
Walker took on fellow veteran Dominick Reyes at UFC 327 earlier this month. Contrary to expectations, the bout was largely marked with inactivity, leading to boos at the Kaseya Center in Miami. Reyes eventually earned a lackluster split-decision win over Walker, with very little to score in the whole fight.
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Nicksick takes responsibility for Walker’s underwhelming performance. Nicksick believes the onus falls on him to communicate his expectations to his fighter.
“Johnny did a great job,” the Xtreme Couture coach told MMAjunkie.com. “We had great preparation. And if there is disconnect between what I wanted for the game plan and his execution, that falls on me as the coach. I’ve got to get him in a position to be firing on all cylinders, seeing the reads that I’m seeing, the expectations that I want from him. And at the end of the day, that falls on us as staff. We have to have him prepared mentally and physically to be in position to go out and do the right things.”
Learning Experience
Nicksick further hinted that Walker was dealing with minor health issues during fight week, which showed residual effects on fight night. However, Nicksick once again takes responsibility for accepting the fight and putting his fighter inside the Octagon while the latter was not at 100%. Walker is still new for Nicksick, who is taking the loss as a learning experience.
“There was some stuff that Johnny was dealing with during fight week that I knew was gonna zap his energy system all throughout the week,” Nicksick said. “He got through it fine, the weight cut went through fine. The day of the fight there were some residual effects to what he was dealing with symptoms-wise. But it’s us that took the fight, obviously, we weren’t gonna pull out of the fight. We put our athlete out there and it just wasn’t the best showing in the world that we could have had. I know that the fans were upset were upset with the performance by both of the guys… It’s still a learning experience for Johnny and I. That’s our second fight together.”
Walker (22-10) was training with Conor McGregor’s coach, John Kavanagh, in Ireland before joining Xtreme Couture in 2025. The Brazilian has since scored an upset TKO win over Mingyang Zhang before the uninspiring loss against Reyes.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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