Herschel Walker's Inexperience Is Not Bad for Strikeforce, MMA

Brendan Schaub, let alone Jay Lester or Johnny Curtis, wasn’t copping main-card slots from other fighters. I’m less against it than I was before because Herschel has done everything right and been a great ambassador – but I’d still hate to be on the undercard of an event he was fighting in.

This is a chronically overlooked truth. Regional events are sloppy as hell. When MMA fans call somebody like Prangley a can, you know they have never seen what regional MMA regularly offers.

Another good fact to throw in is that Carwin beat middleweights before getting the call to the UFC. Regional level booking isn’t fair or pretty.

I’d say he’s “better for the sport” than most fighters – he may not be an elite fighter, but he’s better-spoken and more respected than most anyone else. Better that he is a public face than they guy who appears to taunt his defeated opponent’s wife.

Also, Strikeforce is dedicated to putting on entertaining fights – with the exception of HW, they stand no chance of having a dominant fighter in any weight class, so they do what they do best – fun fights. Yes, I’d rather see legit prospects on the main card, getting their brand to the world, but SF has a limited window to impress its masters with ratings and dollars. Walker is the easiest way to do that.

Agreed.

but I do think it’s kind of amusing that your writings today include a defense of Walker, who is in his late 40s and has no future relevancy in the sport, and a slam on Roger Gracie who is in his late 20s and is a threat to strangle anyone on earth at 205.

Herschel Walker is not the worst possible mainstream representative of the sport.

More eyes are good.

Therefore, Walker is doing the sport a huge service by presenting the sport to people who may or may not be all that familiar with it, especially football fans. This is wildly different from someone like Kimbo, who didn’t have any athletic credibility.

Clearly Couture vs. Walker is the answer. Let’s do co-promotion, bitches.

After last night, I’m much more excited to see him fight again than I was after his first fight. I had a huge smile on my face when he was giving his post-fight interview with Mauro. A real genuine and humble person that I hope to see a lot more of in MMA (wether it be fighting or something else like cornering a fighter) I know he mentioned a lot about helping up and coming AKA fighters on there way towards being champions

I’m just astonished by some of the daggers thrown Walker’s way from fans for night fighting top competition or getting a shot at the big show when it’s only his 2nd fight.

I know he is there for casual eyes only. I would rather see some up and comers fighting than him. But oh well. There are plenty of times where I’ve sat through fights on UFC cards that I did not want to watch.

Especially as he hasn’t really paid dividends. All the attention he brings from non-MMA media is attention to himself only, since none of this coveted sports media can be bothered to mention ‘MMA’ or ‘Strikeforce’, with the bare minimum only a couple will do is say ‘Ultimate Fighting’. In that regards the attention Walker has brought has been worthless.

and definitively.
thanks for this piece Luke, its insightful of the basment of mma which often remains nebulous and unacknowledged.
Walker, frankly – is nothing short of amazing and i am happy for those who can appreciate the spirit of his gesture.

It had to happen some time, right?

Walker has been great for the sport and has changed my opinion of his place on the main card since he first fought; while I disliked that his debut meant Hieron and Riggs got bumped, he’s the bigger name bringing bigger eyes to the sport.

The question I have now is what happens next? While I agree he shouldn’t be fighting elite competition, he also should be taking on guys who aren’t one loss removed from a nine-year hiatus from the sport. Test him against some of those regional unknowns who are at least training and competing routinely.

There is nothing wrong with Walker fighting these handpicked push overs, he doesn’t have a MMA career he is just someone helping to draw some interest to the sport. If he gets some more people to pay attention to the sport then that’s a great use for him but lets also keep our heads in reality here too. Walker has fought guys who were handpicked to make Walker look good and Walker is never going to have a future in the sport like Brendan Schaub has. For Walker it’s all about getting the attention now because he may only fight a couple of more times. There is no career to build and mold and there is no future for him as a fighter so you might as well try to get the most out of the here and now with him. It’s a shame Marcus Jones retired because former NFL player vs former NFL player in a MMA cage would be something Strikeforce could sell.

I am not opposed at all to Walker or Kimbo or Toney. They all serve a purpose. Just like there is room enough in the sport for legitimacy and spectacle, there is room on one or two cards a year to have a guy like Walker bring some more eyeballs to the sport. Most of the people against this are Hardcore fans who like MMA to remain a niche sport just so they can say they belong to something outside of the mainstream. Like Fathers who can’t accept their daughters are no longer virgins, they need to get over it.

Is that more people should watch low-level MMA. It’s generally confusing, frequently appalling, usually brief, consistently violent, and all around awesome.

I understand that Walker is important to Strikeforce on some level in the same way Michael Jordan was important to his AAA ballclub in baseball. That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy watching him get built up on cans on the main card. The way I see it, you get one of two things. Either you get babied and built up by getting fed a few cans first, or you get to be on the main card right away and you get thrown straight into the shark tank (ala Brock Lesnar).

Now, I don’t hate Walker for this (it makes sense at his age to take it slow), and I don’t blame Strikeforce for doing it (it makes perfect business sense). I’m just saying that I don’t have to enjoy watching these snuff matches where the guy hasn’t fought for 10 years and looks intimidated as hell by Walker and lets himself get backed into the cage.

You don’t put Walker up against a legit contender right away, but I think they could do better than Scott Carson.