Herschel Walker Understands the Risk of MMA
by Brent Brookhouse on Jan 29, 2010 11:01 AM EST
in MMA News
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``I love martial arts,'' he said. ``I've loved it for years. I love the sport of it. When I saw MMA years ago, I fell in love with it.
``They've cleaned it up so much that it is now a mainstream sport, and I wanted to get involved in it. There are incredible athletes doing it, and I want to consider myself a good athlete, and that's the reason I want to do it.''
...
``I told [AKA founder and trainer] Javier Mendez. I said, `Javier, it is up to you and the fighters here. I would love to fight, but after a couple of weeks, if you don't think I can do it, you tell me, or the fighters tell me, and I'll swallow my pride and not do it.'
``It is a serious sport. It's not a gimmick. It's not fake. You can get hurt, if you don't know what you're doing in the ring. At the same time, AKA has a lot of pride. So I left it up to them.
- Herschel Walker speaking to the Miami Herald
Walker is certainly saying all the right things here. He understands that the sport is dangerous and explains that he doesn't have any crazy idea of being heavyweight champion. At this point if he is getting medical clearance to fight then there is no point in arguing with the idea of Strikeforce putting him on the main card. It's pretty clear that Walker is drawing more interest to the card than anyone else and really, does he provide any worse risk to the representation of "what our sport is" to a first time viewer than a guy like Nick Diaz?
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Yes, Herschel Walker’s opinions are important to me.
by Dlanor A. Knox on Jan 29, 2010 11:07 AM EST reply actions
Where are my front page articles and ESPN coverage? I don’t get no respect.
by Dlanor A. Knox on Jan 29, 2010 11:14 AM EST up reply actions
No different than Jordans foray into baseball
Espn didn’t cover MJ’s every minor league game. ESPN is about sports with a focus at the highest level. If Herschel was a top prospect they’d be all over it.
by JimJoe on Jan 29, 2010 11:44 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
He seems like a nice enough guy and all
but part of me feels like he shouldn’t win in order to preserve the legitimacy of the sport despite all his previous training and the guy he’s fighting being a big soup can, at least as far as in the eyes of the casual observer is concerned.
"You never know, I don't know, you know?" - Nick Diaz
Concerning casuals and new watchers
Everyone starts somewhere. Like I’ve said before, Mir/Sims 2 got me into MMA and I thought that was the pinnacle of the sport.
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turning every good thing to rust.
by Anthony Pace on Jan 29, 2010 5:00 PM EST up reply actions
Did Hershel Walker sign with Strikeforce and THEN start training MMA? I know he has a background in Tae Kwon Do, but is his 12-weeks at AKA his only MMA training experience?
Depenmds on who you believe
According to Herschel, he has been training TMA for 30 years and MMA for eight years.
According to Javier Mendez, he couldn’t even throw a proper punch or kick when he showed up at AKA 12 weeks ago.
Mendez is known to exaggerate to build hype.
Herschel has long been suspected of hyperbole. I believe the truth lies in between, like Walker going to MMA gyms one a week or so for the last 8 years or spending most of his time hitting a speed bag and focusing on fitness rather than technique.
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
False
I believe the truth is always at the furthest extremes, no matter how contradictory. For example: “the CIA was responsible for 9/11 because our enemy is too inept to pull that off” and “our president is a secret Al Qaeda agent because our enemy is so diabolical”.
False.
The truth is one step beyond those extremes. For example: “There is no evidence the towers ever existed.” Or the xkcd version:
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
I have been firmly against Herschel Walker being allowed to fight in MMA. However I’ll admit I have changed my mind.
Now taking into account his time as a football player and his mental illness I am still worried about how suffering a concussion could effect him at his age. So I hope nothing goes wrong in that aspect. But in these last few interviews he has seemed to have it all together and appears to be doing and saying the right things. Before these last few interviews I wondered if he really understood the dangers involved and quite frankly if he was all there. I guess these last few interviews have relieved my fears that he fully realizes the dangers involved for himself and that he deserves at least one shot to prove whether this is a good idea or not.
Just BE.
by mattman73 on Jan 29, 2010 1:43 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
"Legitimacy" is way too subjective to throw around
I mean… why do people think having a former pro football player coming into the UFC as such a negative thing. It’s like the only sport where the fans have such a huge chip on their shoulder. I mean.. do you think baseball fans were like… “why are they letting Deon Sanders play baseball… stick to football, this is a real game”
The fact of the matter is… a lot of professional athletes are people that are gifted with freak athletisism and then a particular sport took their interest and they got real good at it… I promise you that if you were to take a lot of the people in the NFL when they were kids, and get them into MMA, many of them would be the top MMA fighters of today.
Like… don’t people think that it’s more legit when you hear about someone who was a professional athlete their whole life wanting to compete, vs. say a math teacher or accountant. Why is it that of all the professions out there… if your previous profession was a sport, it makes it illegitimate to fight?
You just sound dumb when you complain about it.
by adamdd on Jan 29, 2010 1:51 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Well to be fair
Comparing basketball to MMA is a little different considering that both basketball and football are so ingrained in our culture that plenty of people regularly take part in both activities throughout there lives and there had been plenty of examples of dudes who very well could have gone into one instead of the other like T.O. for instance. The difference to me is if T.O. was to go into basketball I don’t think you’d get alot of people arguing the validity of the sport of basketball based on a football player coming in and doing well.
MMA is still nowhere near as excepted or understood, most people still don’t even know the actual name of the sport, we’re still trying to argue the validity of the sport to outsiders looking in and convince them that it does take a tremendous amount of skill and training. If these people then see a 47 year old head case come in and do well it might not do all that much for convincing how difficult it really is. I’ve seen people bash the sport based on a former pro wrestler being the champion after 3 fights despite him being a freak of nature and coming in with one of the best bases for doing well in the sport.
I like Herchel well enough and I’m actually pretty interested in how he fairs whether is opponent is pretty lousy or not. I’ve never been opposed to him competing nor have I ever complained about such but I’m just wondering how this will effect the sport in the long run outside of a little increased attention at the moment. But at the same time yeah it’s not like he’s going in there against a top 10 rated fighter or anything.
And if you are to imply that I myself sound dumb sir well then a comment like that very well may lead to fisticuffs and I would certainly hope one of the staff was near by to save you from the sound thrashing that would commence.
"You never know, I don't know, you know?" - Nick Diaz
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