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UFC light heavyweight Johnny Walker may have lost to Magomed Ankalaev in his last outing at UFC Vegas 84, but it does not mean the Brazilian has not picked up something positive from defeat.
Currently training out of SBG Ireland, the 31-year-old had been riding a three-fight winning streak when he stepped up to take on the Dagestani top-contender back in October. After a back-and-forth opening couple minutes, Walker found himself on the wrong end of an illegal knee. A somewhat needlessly brusque interrogation by ringside officials saw the bout waved off. Fortunately for the Brazilian, he got a rematch just a couple months later in the first Fight Night main event of 2024.
Unfortunately for Walker, this time his loss was absolutely definitive.
Johnny Walker didn’t anticipate tactical adjustments from Ankalaev in UFC rematch
Frustrating as the second round TKO loss may have been, Walker tells Ag Fight he knows exactly what went wrong in the match and sounded quite self-critical on his assessment. Although he mostly sounded disappointed in the mistakes he made, at least he seemed satisfied with his performance in the first round.
“I messed up when I kicked him within boxing distance. I shouldn’t have kicked him. My first round was really good. I landed a lot of shots on him. I won the first round, I’m sure of that. In the second round, though, he changed his strategy. He started a bit closer to me, he was walking forward. I should have changed my strategy, too. I should’ve started hitting him with my hands, box him. When you’re walking backwards, you don’t have a good stance to kick.”
“I know where I went wrong.” Walker said. “I’m fighting the best in the world. You blink at the wrong time, that’s it. You’re going down. He changed his strategy and I didn’t. That was my mistake in the fight. He changed it, it threw me off and I didn’t adapt. So I kicked him while in boxing distance and that’s when his hand landed. I was too close. There’s now way I should’ve left him touch me, I’m a lot longer than most fighters.”
Magomed Ankalaev a title contender again?
For Magomed Ankalaev (18-1-1-1 NC) his victory on January 13th broke a string of unfortunate results. Prior to the no-contest in his first bout against Walker, he fought former champion Jan Blachowicz to a split draw in December 2022. Prior to that bout, the Fight Club Akhmat talent was riding a nine-fight winning streak in the Octagon.
During that time, the 31-year-old scored wins over some notable names in the division, such as Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos and Nikita Krylov, among others. Ankalaev’s last and only defeat happened in his Octagon debut, when he got submitted by Paul Craig via triangle choke in the last second of their fight, in March 2018. It’s unclear at the moment what will be next for current champion Alex Pereira. However, if Jamahal Hill isn’t ready to return in the immediate future, then it seems very likely that Ankalaev will get his second chance to win a UFC title in 2024.