Johnny Walker: I have no coach and I’m by myself looking for a good coach

We’ve seen many fighters enter the UFC through Dana Whites Contender Series over the last couple of years. The likes of Sean O’Malley, Maycee Barber, Sodiq Yusuff, Greg Hardy amongst others. But it was Johnny Walker’s performance that caught Dana Whites eye on the Series back in 2018. Once given the contract it seemed as if nobody could stop the Brazilian on his way up to the top. 

Walker bagged wins against Khalil Roundtree, Justin Ledet and Misha Cirkunov on his arrival to the big stage. A lot of people were thinking that he may emerge as a title challenger to Jon Jones in the Light Heavyweight division with a win over his next opponent Cory Anderson. 

Unfortunately that plan did not come to fruition. Walker was stopped in the very first round against Anderson a top contender in his own right. 

Speaking with Sean Sheehan while in the UFC performance Institute, training alongside Conor McGregor as he prepares for his UFC 246 main event with Donald Cerrone, Walker spoke on the problems he had leading up to that fight with Anderson. Speaking of UFC 246, many pundits are predicting Cerrone to cause an upset as he’s a big underdog against McGregor this Saturday.

“I’m so thankful to God for giving me this lesson. I was a very big lesson for me. I was fucked up in my mind. I had so many problems on the fight week. Imagine on fight week your own coach and your own team stress you out so they helped me to lose that fight. I thank god that I lose this fight so I can see who is around me (after the loss). So now I have no coach and I’m by myself looking for a good coach to get back to normal.”  

Speaking further on the fight week problems Walker stated, “He (Walker’s old coach) brought girls into my room to drink when I was trying to cut weight. I talked to him about it, he wanted to fight me in front of the girls to pretend to be the man. He also asked for tickets to the fight for another girl and he tried to fight me again when I refused.”

“He asked me for double pay even after I lost the fight. I am happy about the loss because I can see now who is with me and who is not.”

The quest to find a new coach and gym brought him to Irish shores when he went to visit SBG headquarters for a short spell last year. Speaking about that experience, he said, “I like Dublin, I like SBG. I’m probably going to go back there again soon.”

“I am also going up to Montreal to do the remaining of my training at Tri Star gym.”

Tri Star gym head coach Firas Zahabi expressed an interest in partnering up with the Light Heavyweight contender in a recent interview with Joe Rogan. 

Walker explained how simply it was all put together with the Tri Star coach. “I watched that interview and contacted him (Zahabi) and he said yes that I am more than welcome to the gym, so I decided to go.”

The #10 ranked Walker looks to right all those wrongs in his upcoming bout against #12 ranked Ukrainian Nikita Krylov. The bout takes place at UFC on ESPN+ on March 14th. Speaking about his opponent, he kept it simple. “I’m going to knock him out in the first round.”

Listen below for the full interview with Sean Sheehan. For even more content sign up for the SevereMMA Patreon for as little as $5 per month.