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In addition to being confident in his skills, Walker is also aware that his itinerant lifestyle when it comes to training is something that has to come to an end if he really wants to build the kind of fighter/coach relationship necessary to take his skills to the next level and make those championship dreams a reality.
Following his loss to Anderson last November at UFC 244, he connected with Firas Zahabi and did his training camp for the bout with Krylov at Montreal’s Tristar Gym, raving about working with the renowned coach and getting insights from the gym’s most famous member, UFC Hall of Famer Georges St-Pierre.
But after facing Krylov in Brasilia, Brazil in mid-March, Walker was locked down in his home country for several months due to the global coronavirus pandemic, which not only limited his training, but also kept him from seeing his girlfriend. When she returned home to Ireland for a vacation, Walker joined her, but was unable to venture back to Montreal once the UFC offered him this bout against Spann.
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“The UFC offered me the fight when I was here and I couldn’t fly to Montreal because they weren’t accepting tourists there and I know John and he’s a really good coach,” Walker said from Dublin, where he’s spent the last several weeks readying under the watchful eye of John Kavangah at SBG Ireland’s main facility. “I was here last year and trained at the gym, so I know they have really good guys.
“I messaged him when the UFC offered me the fight and asked if he could help me with my training camp and he said, ‘100 percent, no problem,’ so I’m here and I’m doing great. John is a real professional, a really good coach, and I hope he can make another champion.
“I want to be with one team,” he added. “I think I have to be more consistent, training every day in the same gym, with the same coach because in Montreal, I trained for like six weeks, and that’s not time enough for Firas to fix me up, teach me everything so I can improve myself.
“I think I’m going to take a little bit of time to work with John so he can help me improve myself and we can work together a little longer so I can improve myself further. You cannot fix mistakes and learn everything in one month, two months; you need a couple months to really learn, so that’s my plan for the next few years.”
Knowing that Walker has never settled in and worked with an accomplished coach or elite team for more than one or two training camps really reframes both his initial UFC successes and his more recent setbacks.
It makes you wonder how much better the takedown defense that cost him in his decision loss to Krylov last time out can be after working for a year or more with the same cast of experienced fighters and coaches or what the creative, powerful striking that produced his trio of quick victories over Rountree, Ledet, and Cirkunov could produce once honed and sharpened?