SAN JOSE, Calif. – In the second professional MMA fight of his life, Herschel Walker learned a lesson well-known to new fighters: Expect the unexpected.
Walker (2-0 MMA, 2-0 SF) was taken by surprise when Scott Carson (4-2 MMA, 0-1 SF) slapped him with a few kicks during the first round of their fight Saturday at “Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Cyborg.
But they woke him up, and he managed to recover to earn a first-round TKO.
Walker and Carson tangled on the main card of the California-based promotion’s first major event of 2011, which took place at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., and aired live on Showtime.
For Walker, a Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL running back, it was a pretty clear lesson that he still has a way to go in the fight game.
“I’m still a young fighter,” the 48-year-old said. “I’m still getting better. Scott is young too, so it ain’t like I did anything special.
“But one thing I’ve got to do is get back to [Americak Kickboxing Academy] and just get back to training and see where it goes from there.”
The second part of that answer likely was a preemption of questions about his desire to continue competing in MMA. Several sportswriters recently have wondered aloud whether Walker is just another bored retiree SAN JOSE, Calif. – and one who might have bitten off more than he can chew. Many have looked at his MMA experiment as a sideshow.
Walker said he doesn’t care much or listen to what the critics say. MMA, he said, is a new challenge and a chance to be an ambassador for a sport he loves. That latter part is what has people guessing on his timeline for active competition.
On one hand, he boasted that he could beat any 20-year-old running a 40-yard dash or on the basketball court. On the other, he conceded MMA is a young man’s game, and a young man he is not.
“But if I can bring more recognition to it, I would love to do that,” he said. “Because I think these guys deserve a lot more recognition than they’re getting.”
Weigh that against Walker’s astonishing post-40 physique and his first MMA fight, a third-round TKO win over the similarly unheralded Greg Nagy. This time around, Walker said his preparation wasn’t a crash course, and he learned new skills working with the savages at AKA. But a sparring session with UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez early in his MMA training was the first indication that he’s a work in progress.
Coker initially allayed his fears that Walker wasn’t ready for fighting by arranging a special sparring session in Los Angeles with a Purdue University wrestler and a jiu-jitsu specialist. He said Walker’s speed was still there, and he was further impressed when the former running back wasn’t tired afterward.
“I told people the first time, ‘I’m not here to entertain people,'” Walker said. “I’ve got other things to do than entertain people. I’m here to fight. If I step in that cage, I’m in a fight.”
And a fight is what he got, at least at first. Walker admitted he’d seen no tape on Carson and thought the fighter was a wrestler. When the kicks came, he was shocked.
“‘Guy, you want to go, we can go,'” he thought.
He took Carson down and immediately found himself defending a developing leg lock, but his balance did not fail him. When Carson could not cinch the hold, he somewhat inexplicably went into survival mode and turtled as Walker pounded away with knees and punches. (Walker landed 53 ground strikes to Carson’s two.) The referee nearly stepped in right there, but Carson flopped to his back and teetered up. When he did, Walker floored him with a punch that forced a final intervention.
Although he put his opponent away in less than half the time he did before, Walker was critical of his performance.
“I did a little bit better than I did in the very first fight,” he said. “But I don’t think it was that impressive because I got kicked twice. The thing I don’t need to do is get kicked.”
So he’ll go back to the drawing board, though he gave no indication of when that would happen or when he might venture to step back into the cage.
The one thing Walker won’t be doing is making a beeline for a title – unless it’s one for “Oldest Man in MMA.”
“The only belt I’ll go at is one I’ll buy,” he joked. “And I don’t think he’s ready to sell his belt to me. You can’t buy a belt?”
“Not right now,” Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said.
“I reckon this is not boxing,” Walker quipped.
That was a bit unexpected.
“For all you boxing fans, I didn’t mean that,” he added.
