A large portion of the UFC roster has made their debut the same way – through getting that call to appear on short notice. Julius Walker did just that back in February when he took on Alonzo Menifield in Seattle. Luckily for Walker, he was already in the throes of a training camp. Unluckily for him, that training camp didn’t exactly align with the fight given.
“I was preparing for a heavyweight fight. Originally, it was going to be that exact same weekend [as my UFC debut wound up being]. My opponent took a short notice fight and they had to push it back a week. So, in my head, I was fighting in two and a half weeks,” Walker explained. “But it was at heavyweight and it was against a, it was against a very mediocre regional opponent. We weren’t able to really find anybody challenging for that fight.”
As he’s preparing for a mediocre heavyweight, he got the call from his manager. Once again, the situation in terms of timing was not exactly ideal.
“Then I get a text message from my manager, Jason House, and he’s like, ‘hey, can you make weight next weekend?’ And I’m like, oh man, crap, I just ate a bunch of pizza. You know, I’m fighting a heavyweight,” he said. “I stepped on the scale and I was a little heavy, but I was like, you know what, I can make weight, let’s make it happen.”
That “little heavy” that Walker described was roughly 240lbs. While that was a large weight cut for just over two weeks, he wasn’t going to stop that from realizing his dreams.
After dealing with a grueling weight cut, you might expect him to say that he wasn’t in great spirits. However, fight week was all positive vibes for him and he had the time of his life.
“The moment was so cool that I remember just not being able to stop smiling. Like I remember, they didn’t show my walkout on TV, but I remember walking out,” he recalled. “I walked out to ‘Dancing Queen’ and the Seattle crowd seemed to like it.”
Ultimately, the fight would not go his way, as he lost a split decision to the ranked light heavyweight opponent. Walker wasn’t going to let that stop the fun though as he and his coaches decided to take in some of the action.
“As a UFC fighter, you do get four free complimentary tickets. So if you wanted to, you could use them for, you know, you and your coaches to go, literally just turn around and watch the fight,” Walker explained. “So I was about to get on the shuttle to go back to the hotel. I was like, hey, could you guys just take us to the front? Cause we still have these comp tickets. None of my family was able to make it cause of the short notice.”
That’s when things got even better for Walker. He ran into a UFC Hall of Famer and then got some big news shortly thereafter.
“And Bisping was super cool. Like just gave me some, gave me some encouragement. It was like, hey man, you know, you obviously need a lot of work because, you know, you’re a rookie, but like, you’ve got a chance, you know? So just go train hard type thing,” Walker said. “And I turn around to go back to my coaches and my team and my coach was on the phone and he’s like, dang, you’re jumping up and down. I’m like, dude, what is his deal right now? And I get back over there and they’re like, dude, you won 50K.”
Now 50k richer and with a full training camp under his belt, Julius Walker is ready to do it all again. He gets his chance to show what he’s really made of at UFC Vegas 109 as he takes on Raffael Cerqueira – and you best believe he’ll be having a great time.
