On Saturday, Johnny Walker will take on Jamahal Hill in the main event of UFC Vegas 48, but it wasn’t always supposed to be that way.
Originally Walker and Hill were set to be the co-main events to a lightweight bout between Rafael dos Anjos & Rafael Fiziev. But when Fiziev encountered visa issues, the fight was moved to UFC 272, and Walker vs. Hill was promoted to the main event.
With that change, the light heavyweight matchup is now a five-round fight, and while that might bother some athletes on short notice, Walker said he doesn’t care at all. Walker is just happy to be in the main-event.
“I think [it’s] amazing. I’m so happy, so glad,” he told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. “I don’t care [whether it’s three or five rounds]. “I don’t know, I didn’t ask.” It’s all about fighting. I don’t care if it’s three or five – I can fight 20 rounds, so it doesn’t matter to me [whether it’s] three or five. That’s not what I need. This guy wants to come with everything, then I’ll go that way as well, so I’m gonna finish the fight early. I train five rounds
Walker is excited about returning to the main event in part because he didn’t think he would be back at the top of a card – at least not so soon. Although Walker is still ranked No. 10 in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings, the Brazilian has been on a rough run, losing three of his past four fights. Most recently, he was on the wrong side of a unanimous decision to Thiago Santos in much-maligned main event this past October. Walker explained that the performance was due to a variety of factors including Santos’s Rio de Janeiro origin.
” I think he is a great fighter, he is high-level,” Walker stated. “He had more experience than me with five rounds, main events. He knows how to win by points, and we saw that the fight is gonna go by points, so he had more experience to get the fight on points. It was just too much time without fighting. I was one year without fighting, so not much time.
“And he’s Brazilian as well. It feels weird that he would beat me up so I just fight. It was really weird fight. And he was very defensive as well. … He’s from my city as well. I [felt] weird. I don’t know what happened. … We were very cautious. It didn’t work out. We threw some punches, but he was waiting for me to make mistakes, and I was waiting for him to make mistakes, and the little mistakes that happened, he probably got the fight on. It was just .”
Walker didn’t regret his fight against Santos. Even though he did not give a stellar performance, he learned valuable experience fighting for five rounds. That being said, Walker does not anticipate another lackluster outing.
” This is my profession, it’s also my life,” Walker stated. Walker said, “Nobody pays me my bills. I have to produce my own money to pay my bills, so it’s my responsibility to go and put the show on, get the bonus, and focus on that. My attention is not on anyone else’s opinions or statements. I know if I do a good job, everybody is gonna be glad to watch so that’s my plan.
“I’m gonna do 100 percent to finish the fight. I don’t want to leave my fights anymore [in the judges’ hands], because I trained so much, I’ve come from hard history, and I’m gonna put everything on the edge of my glove this Saturday, and go out there and do my best. … I’m gonna be very professional. All of my knowledge and all my levels will be used. My explosiveness and my unpredictable nature will make me stand out. I will use every weapon I have, but also take my time. I’m gonna just be another level. You have to go to another level, and I’m gonna do that.”
UFC Vegas 48 takes place on Saturday at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas.
