Johnny Walker Stopped Waldo Cortes-Acosta in Round 3 at UFC Vegas 124: What His Second Heavyweight Win Means
Johnny Walker finished Waldo Cortes-Acosta by TKO at 2:27 of the third round Saturday night at the UFC Apex, and he did it while giving up 23 pounds.
Cortes-Acosta opened the round with a clean overhand right. Walker answered with a head kick, then landed a backfist that buckled the Dominican’s knees, dropped him with a straight right to the jaw and finished with ground strikes until referee Jason Herzog stepped in.
Walker weighed 239 pounds at Friday’s official weigh-ins. Cortes-Acosta weighed 262.
Two Heavyweight Fights, Two Knockouts, Five Weeks Apart
This was Walker’s second straight win at heavyweight and his second straight finish there. He knocked out Mick Parkin with knees at 3:35 of the first round in his heavyweight debut at UFC 332 on Oct. 3. He is now 24-10 with one no contest, and 10-7 with one no contest in the UFC.
He has been blunt about why he moved up. “I’m 240, 245 normal, my natural weight,” Walker said afterward. “I cut 40 pounds being lean. I killed myself at light heavyweight.” He added: “I feel more energized. I can train better. My brain is more healthy to get information.”
The other thing he wanted to settle was his chin. Walker was dropped earlier in the fight and got back up. “I just took the best shots of a heavyweight now, clean, on my chin,” he told Michael Bisping in the cage, before asking the crowd, “Who don’t have a chin now?” Cortes-Acosta had never been stopped before Saturday.
He Took a Fight Two Other Men Turned Down
This card was supposed to be headlined by a welterweight fight between Gabriel Bonfim and Sean Brady. Brady withdrew on Oct. 29 with a staph infection in his knee and the bout was scrapped.
The UFC says two fighters declined the chance to face Cortes-Acosta before Walker accepted. Neither has been named publicly. Reports on how much notice Walker actually got range from five days to nine, so treat any single figure with caution.
“It just showed my potential, right?” Walker said. “I wasn’t 100 percent trained, but I was more or less in shape.”
Cortes-Acosta, 35, had said he did not care who signed up. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he said beforehand. “If any people want to fight me, I want to fight them, too, no matter what.” He falls to 17-5 and has now lost three in a row, after decision defeats to Alexander Volkov in May and Curtis Blaydes in September. He entered the night ranked sixth at heavyweight.
Where This Leaves Him
Walker and Cortes-Acosta each collected $100,000, two of four bonuses worth $400,000 total on the night. Elijah Smith, who knocked out Davey Grant in 60 seconds and then announced he is a free agent, and Thomas Petersen, who stopped Gabriel Lourenco with 13 seconds left in the third round, took the other two. Tatiana Suarez beat Virna Jandiroba by unanimous decision in the co-main event.
Walker went into the fight unranked at heavyweight and should appear in the top 15 when the rankings update Tuesday. Ciryl Gane holds the undisputed title, elevated in September after Tom Aspinall vacated it because of ongoing eye injuries, and Gane defends against Josh Hokit at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 14.
Walker has already volunteered to be the backup. “If someone drops out of the title fight next week or gets injured, they can put me in there too,” he said, adding that he would fly to New York if the UFC covered the flight. He also said he would prefer to return around February or March, and that Volkov, his training partner, is the fight he wants.
Two knockouts in five weeks at a weight where he does not have to starve himself. At 34, Walker has found the version of his career that works.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
