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Johnny Walker’s former coach tells his version after the light heavyweight said Gosling took $30,000 from him.
Johnny Walker’s former coach Leonardo Gosling had to find out through the news what his ex-pupil has been saying about their relationship lately.
Recently, in an interview with Ag Fight, Walker explained he left Gosling and was looking for a new head coach after allegedly lending Leonardo $30,000 to start a gym in Thailand, an endeavor Johnny says he later learned that never took place, marking he last straw on an already strained relationship.
However, Gosling was also approached by Ag Fight to tell his side of the story, which he says did not go like Johnny’s narrative. In Leonardo’s version, both him and Walker wanted to start the gym and Thailand after spending some time there for a training camp, but the initial amount was never $30,000, but $10,000, meant to be split in half between the coach and the fighter.
“We went to Thailand, I got us a free camp at AKA, I was the one who did that part,” Gosling said. “We liked it there and I suggested we could stay, find a place to teach classes. Him and his brother liked the idea and I got us a place. I suggested, ‘Let’s start a dojo in the guy’s gym, because he only does Muay Thai. You pay the first half and pay the other one when we start making money.’
“He sent me $10,000 and we started from scratch, I have all the pictures,” he continued. “We didn’t get along and decide it was better to get out and take the loss. It was never $30,000, I don’t know where that came from. It set us back, it wasn’t a rip off. It was bad, we had no students, the gym was hard to find, we would have had to invest in marketing. I agreed to take it out of my percentage and would pay the rest of five thousand little by little.”
Currently living in Lisbon, Portugal, Gosling says the hardest part of having Walker leaving him was learning all about it through by checking the news, stating that his former athlete never had the courage to fire him himself.
“I learned everything from the news, that he was switching trainers,” Gosling said. “He didn’t have the courage to talk to me. ‘This is how it is from now on, I will continue to pay you your 10%, which was our agreement.’ I used to learn about conversations from his brother, Walter. He would tell me because he was getting desperate, not because he wanted to do gossip. He started dealing with famous coaches, famous managers who were offering him money. He knows my dream was to become a UFC coach and manager, he knows my backstory, how much I dreamed of that.
“It was cold to hear him say I couldn’t hold pads. I think I could have ripped him off, I could have stolen, anything, but he should stand up for me, because I was his trainer. I wasn’t the best, but I was enough to get him there. He should preserve our story.”
In his last outing, Johnny Walker (17-4) got knocked out by Corey Anderson at UFC 244 this past November. The fight snapped a three-fight winning streak for the 27-year-old, with knockout wins over Khalil Rountree, Justin Ledet and Misha Cirkunov.
Now, Walker is expected to take on Nikita Krylov at UFC Fight Night 170, on March 14, in Brasilia, Brazil. The card is scheduled to be headlined by a lightweight bout between contenders Charles Oliveira and Kevin Lee.