del.icio.us
Digg It!
E-Mail to a Friend
Printable Version
Comments
Herschel Walker, the 1982 Heisman trophy winner and NFL star, will make his mixed martial arts debut on Jan. 30, with the hottest promotion in MMA, Strikeforce. Walker will battle the largely unheard of Greg Nagy, who has a 1-1 record, on Showtime.
Walker's debut has the MMA world abuzz. How could a 47-year-old enter the cage for the first time and be successful among great mixed martial arts athletes? Walker has been training at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose
UFC president Dana White insists that Strikeforce, Showtime and Walker are making a joke out of mixed martial arts.
White suggests that taking a guy with no experience in competitive fighting and putting him on a national stage is terrible for the sport.
"Which athletic commission is going to let this guy fight?" White said on September Inside the Ultimate Fighter podcast. "Who the f**k are they going to find to fight Herschel Walker? A guy in a wheelchair?"
The signing of Walker may have more to do with the larger MMA battle being waged. UFC for the last three years has dominated MMA, but Strikeforce has risen in popularity in the last year. With Fedor Emelianenko, Gina Carano and Dan Henderson on the Strikeforce roster, along with a quarterly primetime show on CBS, the company is getting a lots of mainstream attention, and signing a well-known name like Walker only creates more buzz.
