Herschel Walker’s Detractors Swing and Miss on Criticisms

Filed under: StrikeforceToo bad we’ll never know just how good Herschel Walker could have been. At 48 years old, even the seemingly ageless Walker admits that he doesn’t see much of a lifespan for himself in mixed martial arts. He focuses more on the t…

Filed under:

Too bad we’ll never know just how good Herschel Walker could have been. At 48 years old, even the seemingly ageless Walker admits that he doesn’t see much of a lifespan for himself in mixed martial arts. He focuses more on the training than the fighting, leaving his Strikeforce career to his team at the American Kickboxing Academy.

That’s a shame, really, because Walker could have been good. Very good. Sure, it’s hard to tell just where he is right now. Even at 2-0, wins over Scott Carson and Greg Nagy aren’t measuring sticks we can easily read. Beginner vs. beginner fights are understandable, but for the fan, they’re not very helpful in evaluating talent. In Walker’s case though, you can see he has it. For a young fighter — figuratively speaking, of course — he has good instincts, power and poise. And even at his advanced age, his athleticism is still quite obvious.

Walker has critics, of course, but most of them are more focused on why he has a job in the first place, rather than what he is when he steps in the cage. And aren’t we supposed to care more about what happens in the cage?