Valter Walker made history after snatching his fourth consecutive heel hook submission in the UFC back in October following a win over Louie Sutherland.
While heel hooks aren’t necessarily uncommon in the UFC, Walker’s innate ability to somehow always catch the submission is stunning, especially with opponents knowing that’s become one of his go to moves. But how exactly is Walker constantly catching this one particularly difficult submission?
It turns out, the Brazilian credits his willingness to go for the kill as the real catalyst.
“The secret of the heel hook, I’ll tell you now — I see many guys in the UFC try to do the heel hook and it don’t work. Why?” Walker told MMA Fighting. “Because they take the heel hook, first they don’t believe this is going to work and second, they [want] their opponent to tap. When I go for the heel hook, I go for broke. I don’t go for my opponent to tap.”
It’s that “go for broke” attitude that Walker believes separates his heel hook submission from so many others.
Obviously, Walker isn’t rooting for anyone to suffer serious harm in a fight but the reality is his opponents are trying to knock him out or potentially break a limb applying a submission so he’s just returning the favor.
“If you see my face, every time when I take the heel hook, my face, I’m doing a lot of power,” Walker said. “Because I’m trying to break his leg. Because if my opponent doesn’t tap, the leg is going to break. Every time, when I [grab the heel hook], I feel the knee crack and the foot crack. The last four fights, I feel everybody’s foot crack. Because I go for broke. This is the secret.
“I don’t think about making you tap. I think about breaking your leg. My coach tells me all the time, don’t go for tap, go for broke. In the gym, go for tap. All the time when I’m in the gym, I go for the tap, they defend. In the gym, I go for a tap, they start to defend. In the fight, I do it and you see how it works.”
Heel hooks are sometimes banned in certain grappling competitions because when applied properly, the submission can do a lot of damage to the knee in rapid-fire fashion.
In MMA, heel hooks aren’t seen quite as often because the attacking fighter usually has to give up a position to go for the submission and many times an opponent can defend by simply slipping free due to sweat making it harder to grab onto the leg.
For Walker, he just sees the opening and when he snatches his heel hook, there’s no going back, although he always hopes both he and his opponent can walk away from the fight.
“You can tap or scream,” Walker said. “I wait for the referee to stop it but the last time, I feel like I broke his leg. The last two times, I feel it could break but I feel like I don’t need to do that. I go for broke and when I feel his leg crack, I already [stop a little bit] because when it cracks, you cannot kick anymore and it’s going to break.
“I don’t need break this guy’s career for six months or maybe one year. I just put my mind on I go for broke.”
While the heel hook has become Walker’s calling card lately, he actually wasn’t as proficient in that submission when he first got to the UFC.
It’s a move that he knew how to execute but after he tapped out Junior Tafa with a heel hook back in 2024, he realized it could be a very effective weapon for him.
“If I tell you the truth, before I don’t train a lot [with this submission],” Walker said. “I don’t try but after my first victory with a heel hook, I started getting better. In the gym before, I know how to do heel hooks. When some Dagestani guy [takes me down] and cannot stand up, I do the heel hook. I know how to do the heel hook better on the ground when I’m under you. This is better. From the top, I don’t do very good. I did in my last four fights from the top but I do more better from the under position. I usually only do the heel hook in the gym when somebody [takes me down] and cannot stand up. I do the heel hook to [submit] him, hit that and we stand up or he tries to defend and it opens the window for me to stand up.
“When I get my first victory from a heel hook, I start believing more on this. Everyday in the gym when I have wrestling training, I try to do in the sparring two or three times. Then every time we have sparring and training, I try to do to my sparring partners two or three times. All the time I shoot from everywhere for the heel hook. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work but I feel I’m getting better. It started working very easy. In the training, I can do this one from everywhere.”
As good as he’s gotten with the heel hook, Walker promises he’s got plenty more in his arsenal but it’s safe to assume every person he faces moving forward is going to be awfully wary about allowing him to get close to the leg.
That alone provides Walker with a potential edge in any fight and could eventually lead to even more devastating finishes in the future.
“Guys say ‘how is it possible?’ I don’t know, I just see,” Walker said. “It’s like people don’t see but I see and I feel. People say I don’t see how? I say I don’t understand how, too, I just see the window and I go inside. I just feel it. Maybe this is my way.
“I keep training everything. I don’t only train heel hooks but I think people only know how to do heel hooks.”
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