Here’s what you may have missed!
Last night (Sat., June 22, 2024) at UFC Saudi Arabia, Johnny Walker suffered his sixth knockout loss as a professional at the hands of power-punching Swiss kickboxer Volkan Oezdemir.
To be frank, it’s getting hard to watch.
Now, no medical professional would recommend getting knocked out six times, but on its own, that number isn’t unheard of in mixed martial arts. Some competitors fight multiple decades and have 50-fight careers, which can lead to some ugly statistics. The legendary Alistair Overeem, for example, has 15 losses via knockout in MMA and another three in the kickboxing ring.
The problem is that Walker doesn’t just get knocked out. He doesn’t take a hard punch, fall to the floor, and cover up until the referee saves him. Each and every time Walker gets put down, he falls like a tree being chopped down in a wind storm. He goes stiff in the fencing response and deep into a long sleep, two bad signs of serious damage.
man, Johnny Walker has taken so much damage in the octagon pic.twitter.com/WRvF8mSPjt
— OOC MMA (@oocmma) June 22, 2024
There are handful of reasons for these knockout losses, both obvious and inobvious. On the technical side of things, Walker still hasn’t developed much of a boxing skill. His defense is to avoid the pocket, but when his back touches the fence, it all goes to hell in a handbasket. That’s a technical and tactical issue, one I don’t believe his current fighting style or fight team have appropriately addressed.
Technical woes are less concerning than the way Walker reacts to getting hit. His brain seems to go on the fritz. You can see him glitch out in real time. In the past, I’ve theorized this reaction is the result of cutting too much weight, which can severely affect a fighter’s ability to take a shot. Walker is one of the biggest men in the division, so my recommendation was a move up to Heavyweight, where at least his brain would be fully hydrated when getting pummeled.
That recommendation came over two years ago, and now it feels too late. Generally, fighters get easier to knock out the more it happens. Walker has suffered two more BAD knockout losses since that article. A lot more damage has been done, and jumping up a weight class feels like less of a solution.
What’s the answer? I don’t have one anymore. I have no desire to be the pearl-clutching writer demanding an athlete retires. He’s still a Top 10-ranked UFC fighter, after all. At the same time, I know full well that some other 220-pound slugger is going to walk Walker to the fence and send him into another deep sleep in the next six-to-18 months.
It’s only going to grow harder to watch.
For complete UFC Saudi Arabia results, coverage, and highlights, click HERE.