Outside Source
Johnny Walker earned his first UFC win in more than two years on Saturday. | Getty/UFC
If Johnny Walker’s approach in the opening frame of the UFC Shanghai main event seemed out of character, well, there’s a reason for that.
The Brazilian shot for a takedown at the outset of his light heavyweight clash with Mingyang Zhang, an ill-advised decision which led to him absorbing elbows from his back. Walker would survive the predicament and looked more like himself in Round 2, when he hurt his adversary with leg kicks before swarming with punches to force a stoppage at the 2:37 mark of the period.
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It was Walker’s first fight since a first-round KO loss against Volkan Oezdemir last June, and he admitted that the layoff did affect him in the early going on Saturday.
Walker Battled Ring Rust at UFC Shanghai
“I feel very good. I just need a little bit more time to use my full game,” he said on the UFC Shanghai post-fight show. “It’s a long time with no fights. One year, no? I got just a little bit shy and not very trusting. That’s why I hug him when I put him down. My takedown was not very effective. Long time, no fight. I lost a little bit of timing with everything.
“… When the second round started to wind me up a little better. I started to move a little bit better. I started to feel the fight OK. I said, ‘OK, now it’s time to go moving forward.’ He took good shots on me, and I took my time to recover. I took three or five seconds to recover from the shots. Good, clean shots. I have a chin, motherf—ers. This is the job. I love it.”
Zhang entered the matchup with some hype after having won his first three Octagon appearances via first-round knockout or technical knockout. Walker can relate, because he was once the highly-touted prospect after finishing his first three promotional foes inside of a round. Some six years later, Walker has faced some of the division’s top talents — and that experience paid off against Zhang. It was Walker’s first UFC victory in more than two years.
“I’m fighting Top 10 for six, seven years, and I fight trained killers,” Walker said. “I’m a trained killer too, so he has to worry because as the guy can get hurt and knocked out and sleep, so do I. Everybody can get hurt in this game. The fight was very emotional for us because we know how hard we train. This is the hardest job in the world.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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