Valter Walker, younger brother of UFC fighter Johnny Walker, is set to make his UFC debut against Lukasz Brzeski at UFC Vegas 90, expressing nerves about meeting fan expectations and emphasizing his different fighting style from his brother’s.
Valter Walker, Johnny Walker’s younger brother, is set to make his UFC debut this Saturday at UFC Vegas 90. He’s stepping into the ring against Lukasz Brzeski, putting his undefeated record on the line. The spotlight’s already on him, thanks to his brother’s success, and it’s giving him a serious case of the butterflies.
“I’m a heavyweight with an 11-0 record and five belts to my name,” Valter shared on the MMA Fighting’s podcast, Trocação Franca. “People are expecting a great fight, and I’m nervous I won’t deliver.” He went on to explain that his fighting style differs from his brother’s. “My brother’s a knockout artist, but I’m more about ground-and-pound. We’re different fighters. People might expect me to fight like Johnny, but I’m not him. I’m my own fighter.”
Johnny’s expected to be in Valter’s corner for his UFC debut. Afterward, Valter plans to help his brother prepare for his light heavyweight showdown against Volkan Oezdemir at UFC Saudi Arabia on June 22.
Valter confessed that he’s been feeling the weight of “surreal expectations” from fans since his MMA debut. His brother was already a UFC fighter at the time, and Valter just wants to deliver exciting fights.
“I started working out because of my brother, I started in MMA because of my brother,” the 26-year-old heavyweight admitted. “I’ve always looked up to him like a superhero. He was a teenager when I was a kid. He was strong, fast, and I wanted to be like him.”
Valter was studying law in Brazil when Johnny moved to England to train for his 2018 fight on the UFC’s Contender Series. Valter flew in to help Johnny prepare and ended up being his sparring partner. He even followed Johnny to Thailand afterward.
“I was scared to spar for real, scared to get punched in the face,” Walker confessed. “I didn’t like it, but my brother beat me up so much.”
“Our first sparring session together ended with me crying,” Valter recalled. “He kicked me in the face, and I ran to the bathroom crying. He followed me and told me he ‘just touched my face,’ and told me to get my act together. I was only 18. We did five more rounds after that. I was crying, but I was still trying to fight back. He told me he thought I had what it took to be a fighter because I was crying, but still trying to hit him back.”
Before his MMA career, Valter competed in Muay Thai and even participated in some “illegal no-rules fights on the sand” in Thailand. He lost his first attempt by TKO and fractured his nose in the process. However, he won his next four fights. An injured shoulder forced Valter to consider leaving combat sports for law school, where he planned to study to become a police officer in Brazil. But his brother convinced him to have surgery first.
Russian coach Gor, the leader of GOR MMA and Valter’s main coach since then, saw championship potential in him and offered to help him get shoulder surgery. Valter ended up getting married and becoming a father in Russia, and has collected MMA titles around the world ever since. The UFC offer arrived after Walker claimed the Titan FC heavyweight title with a fourth-round stoppage of Alex Nicholson in his most recent appearance.
“I don’t like to make plans because every time I’ve made plans, it didn’t go the way I was expecting,” Walker said of what to expect from his UFC debut. “After my ninth fight, I said I’m done making plans. There was a fight that my coach said it was going to be easy and I went three rounds, super tough. ‘Easy fight?’ And then one we expected to be hard, I finished in the first round. I don’t like to make plans.
“People are like, ‘It’s Johnny’s brother, 11-0, and the other guy is coming off four losses.’ He has bills to pay just like I have. He’s there to kill me and I’m there to kill him. People say it’s going to be easy, that I’m going to knock him out. I don’t like to underestimate anyone, because when the cage closes and a punch lands on the chin, you’re out. The 11-0 guy can be on the ground and the guy on a skid is now the champion. I’m going there to win, of course, and put on a good fight. I want to deliver what people expect. But we never know what’s going to happen. I’m ready for anything. I’m ready to beat and get beat.”