Valter Walker has inexplicably pulled off four consecutive heel hook submission wins but that wasn’t the original game plan for his fight against Louie Sutherland at UFC 321.
Suffering a broken leg just seconds into the fight can do that to you.
While there’s not much to complain about when you secure a submission win in just 84 seconds, Walker was actually averting disaster with his quick finish. It turns out he actually suffered a cracked fibula from a kick thrown by Sutherland that effectively forced Walker to go for the finish or risk not being able to continue.
“I felt in the fight. When he kicked me, I feel my leg broke,” Walker told MMA Fighting. “When he kicked me, my leg [broke], and when I put it back on the ground, I felt my foot [wasn’t] listening to me. I understand something is going wrong.
“This moment I said I need to go for takedown and finish the fight fast, because if he kicks again, I lose the fight.”
It’s remarkable that Walker kept his poker face through it all but he admits that was the only way he could maintain his composure so Sutherland wouldn’t know that something was wrong with him.
There’s no doubt he was hurting — rather badly actually — but Walker wasted no time getting a takedown and then locking on the heel hook that forced Sutherland to tap out.
“Because if you show you feel the pain, this guy is going to kick again,” Walker explained. “He kicked me, I felt the pain. I felt I blocked it, but I don’t believe it. My bone was broke. I thought it was my muscles or something like that. I felt the pain, my leg stopped listening to me. I tried to do something and my foot doesn’t listen.
“If you see, I shoot for the takedown, but the takedown was a little bit weird. Because my leg is not listening. I felt I cannot show for him that I’m feeling pain. Because if I show, this guy is going to believe even more in himself. If I punch you, I see you feel the pain, I’ll believe even more in my power. Because of that, I tried to hide it and it worked.”
Considering the dominant way he won the fight, Walker says no one actually bought it when he later revealed the leg injury that could have very easily derailed his entire performance.
“Nobody believed me when I said my leg was broken,” Walker said. “My wife don’t believe, my coach don’t believe. Because I came home, I’m walking — walking bad but I was walking. I moved apartments, because I moved to a new apartment near my gym, like a five-minute walk, and moved some bags and after my wife was like ‘how can you do this if your leg is broken? You don’t feel pain?’ I said I feel pain but I just want to move to the new apartment.”
Even Walker wasn’t totally certain about the severity of his injury until he visited with his doctor to get X-rays on his leg. When the doctor returned with the image that showed his fibula was snapped in two, he was stunned.
“At first, I thought I felt [a lot] of pain but I tried to tell myself, ignore the pain because after three days, you’ll be normal,” Walker said. “I slept, woke up and my leg pain is more. I still don’t believe it, maybe it’s broke. [I went to the doctor and I said] I think my leg is really broken.
“The doctor when he showed me the picture, I didn’t believe it. What the f*ck? My leg is broken? I don’t want to believe that. I tried to tell myself just ignore the pain, it’s going to be healed.”
Following his latest win, Walker initially called for a fight at the upcoming UFC Qatar card on Nov. 22 but that’s not even possible now.
The good news is that Walker avoiding the kind of injury that could sidelined him for several months, and he’s probably only looking at a short layoff with hopes that he’ll return in early 2026.
“I don’t need to do surgery,” Walker revealed. “I just need to put on the cast because the [entire] bone is not [completely broken in two]. If it’s like that, I need to do surgery. But [it’s not like that] so the doctor said it’s like five or six weeks for recovery but I cannot put weight on this leg. If I put weight on the leg, maybe the bone moves and I need to do the surgery. He put the cast on and just don’t need to move [I’m using crutches]. That’s it.
“I’d like to fight in December or November, but with this broken leg, it’s five weeks. I’ll probably be ready to fight in February or March.”
If there’s one positive to take away from this entire ordeal it’s that Walker can obviously fight through some serious adversity and still get the job done.
Now the bigger stress might fall on his coaches and his wife to keep him from going back to the gym too soon because Walker is already itching for another fight even with a cast covering his broken leg.
“Maybe it gives me a little time to relax because in six years in my career, I never take time to relax,” Walker said. “Every time I win, after one or two days, I come back to the gym. I never spend like three days with no training. My first time this week in six years, I don’t train for three days.
“I want to go to the gym but my doctor, my coach and my wife said ‘please, one week don’t do nothing.’ I feel next week, I’m ready to come back do some [upper body] workouts. But this week I will relax and recover and I want to recover correct.”
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