{"id":958983,"date":"2026-11-10T05:12:25","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T05:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/958983\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T05:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T05:12:25","slug":"johnny-walker-wanted-to-take-it-slow-at-heavyweight-then-ufc-called","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/958983\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Walker wanted to take it slow at heavyweight, then UFC called"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnny
\nWalker<\/a>\u2019s heavyweight run is going faster than he planned.<\/p>\n


\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> welterweights Sean Brady<\/a>
\nand Gabriel
\nBonfim<\/a> were originally scheduled to headline
\nUFC Vegas 124<\/a> on Nov. 7 at Meta Apex in Las Vegas. However,
\nBrady pulled out because of a severe staph infection and the
\npromotion didn\u2019t book a replacement to keep Bonfim on the card.
\nWalker then accepted the headlining matchup against Waldo
\nCortes-Acosta<\/a> on nine days\u2019 notice.<\/p>\n

What a victory over Waldo Cortes-Acosta could mean for Johnny
\nWalker
\n
\nWalker (23-10, 1 NC) made his heavyweight debut against Mick Parkin<\/a>
\nin October, scoring a bonus-winning first-round knockout. The
\nformer light heavyweight recently revealed he originally wanted to
\ntake things slow in his new weight class.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking to take small steps and go slow in the division,\u201d
\nWalker said at media day ahead of UFC Vegas 124. \u201cSee how I feel at
\nheavyweight. That was my plan. God had different plans than me. God
\nhas better plans for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cortes-Acosta (17-4) was riding a three-fight win streak before
\nlosing to Alexander
\nVolkov<\/a> and Curtis
\nBlaydes<\/a> this year. A win over \u201cSalsa Boy\u201d will launch Walker
\ninto the heavyweight Top 10 in just his second appearance in the
\ndivision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Walker\u2019s heavyweight run is going faster than he planned. Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweights Sean Brady and Gabriel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":958984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[4225,64,63,802,223668,44,85],"class_list":["post-958983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-https-www-sherdog-com-news-news-ufc","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}