Johnny Walker Says There Were Issues With Former Coach Before UFC 244
All may not have been well for Walker and former coach Leo Gosling before UFC 244, as Walker says there were a lot of issues between them in the lead up to the bout.
“I don’t have a coach now,” Walker told MMA Fighting. “I’m looking for a better one to work with me. New life. We spent a long time together, he lived with me in Thailand, but sometimes lacked respect between us. I don’t know. I just know it couldn’t continue. We had big situations on fight week. We almost fought each other before the fight because of small things. There were other things, too. The gym in Thailand, he was working on things there, but didn’t get a contract done. I spent $30,000 and there’s nothing in the gym. I ended up losing that money. Many things happened, so I decided to stop working with him otherwise I wouldn’t get anywhere, I would keep losing. I don’t want to lose, I want to win.”
Walker has separated from Gosling and is training at the UFC Performance Institute before going to Tri-Star before his next bout at UFC Fight Night Brasilia.
The fighter also states that he wasn’t happy with who was surrounding him in the lead up to and at UFC 244.
“Imagine going to war and not being happy with who’s with you,” Walker said. “You don’t know if you can count on him, if you can get shot in the back, you know? It’s complicated. It doesn’t matter how hard you trained, how physically prepared you are, if you have something blocking your mind, a personal issue that doesn’t let you be creative and stresses you on fight week, you don’t have good performance. Fighting is 100 percent mental. Everybody trains hard. If your head isn’t good on fight day, you lose to someone that isn’t that good or someone you were confident you’d beat. Your mind has to be bulletproof, 100 percent focused.”
UFC Fight Night Brasilia takes place on Saturday, March 14 from the Ginasio Nilson Nelson in Brasilia, Brazil with Kevin Lee and Charles Oliveira headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which streams live on ESPN+.
