UFC’s Johnny Walker aims to wash out bad taste of no-contest in rematch

Johnny Walker was not ready for his fight night to end so early back on Oct. 21 of last year.

He didn’t have a choice in the matter, and it wasn’t because his skills weren’t up to snuff against fellow UFC light heavyweight contender Magomed Ankalaev that evening in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Back at UFC 294, Walker absorbed a blatant, illegal knee while down on one knee, recovering back to his feet against the fence.

The illegal strike, which connected solid to Walker’s chin but didn’t appear to have him in danger of being finished, led to the cageside physician inspecting the Brazilian to assess his ability to continue fighting.

And as much as Walker seemed relatively lucid for a man who had been hit in the head by significant strikes seven times, per UFC Stats, the doctor disagreed, and the bout was halted at his recommendation after 3 minutes, 13 seconds.

The result: a distasteful no-contest.

“It’s a lot of hard work that you put into fight,” Walker told The Post this week ahead of Saturday’s rematch, which headlines the first UFC event of 2024. “You miss a lot of good quality time with your family, and then a lot of commitment, a lot of diet, a lot of training. You put a lot of time in. … You don’t want the fight to stop with no results, so you get a little bit upset.”

Walker (21-7, 19 finishes) certainly rejected the doctor’s advice on his ability to continue in the moment, so much so that he looked to walk back to the center of the octagon to reengage Ankalaev, giving referee Dan Movahedi a light shove in an effort to get back to work.

A comical scene unfolded, with somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen men entering the octagon to keep the two unvictorious combatants apart.

Only after Dana White, the UFC CEO whose presence has proved effective at defusing such situations in the past, talked down Walker did order return and allow the unfortunate result to be announced.

As much as Walker, in the moment, wanted nothing more than to continue, the months between the first fight and this weekend’s scheduled do-over have offered the hulking 6-foot-6 striker known for a wide grin and a penchant for wild, quick knockouts some clarity on the way the aftermath of the foul unfolded.

“I realize that I got the damage; if the fight kept going, I would be at a disadvantage,” Walker said. “But, at the time, you’re never going to [want to] stop the fight. If you have a broken arm, if you have a broken hand or broke whatever, feel pain, doesn’t matter. We’re always gonna try to fight because you don’t like to feel the damage; you don’t like to feel the damage sometimes.

“We don’t make smart decisions. We just want to fight, fighting to the death. We don’t give a f–k. This is us: fighters.”

If the doctor had not deemed Walker unfit, it would be at the referee’s discretion to take away a point from Ankalaev for the foul, a less-common occurrence in such situations than logic would dictate but one that would be intended to level the score some for the offending fighter causing illegal damage.

But that option was unavailable once the doctor decided Walker was too far compromised.

One thing Walker would prefer had happened that night, and he stands by, is a different ruling on the result of the fight, with his preference being a disqualification of the Russian from MMA hotbed Dagestan (17-1-1, nine finishes).

Nonetheless, Walker clearly preferred to have a rematch, rather than move on to a new opponent

“I wanted to get [the fight with Ankalaev] back because I was enjoying the fight,” Walker says. “I was doing step-by-step, feeling the fight. I was enjoying, so this is why I was so upset when the fight finished because I was liking the fight; I was enjoying. So I just want to finish what I started.”

With any luck, Walker will get his wish at UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday, armed with some extra preparation thanks to his limited time in the cage with Ankalaev, who challenged for the vacant light heavyweight title in 2022 in a fight that ended in a draw.

“I learned a few things,” says Walker, a winner of three straight before the no-contest with the fellow 31-year-old. “I feel his power. I feel his technique. So this fight’s gonna be a little bit different because I know what to expect already.”

What Walker expects: “Just a normal human being.”

“Everybody’s beatable. There’s nothing crazy about that. So, [he’s] just a normal man. But I’m gonna show this and expose him.”