Hershel Walker

[Dragonzbane76]

canseco is such a douchbag. I hope walker does destroy him.

[MasterKiller]

[GeneChing]

He's fighting in Dec again? That's one bad ass vegetarian.

Nearing 50, Renaissance jock Herschel Walker breaks fitness rules
By Madison Park, CNN
October 11, 2010 8:24 a.m. EDT
Herschel Walker's genesis into a Renaissance jock (Olympic bobsledder, Heisman winner) sprang from chubby beginnings.
Herschel Walker's genesis into a Renaissance jock (Olympic bobsledder, Heisman

(CNN) -- Javier Mendez, a mixed martial arts trainer for 32 years, scoffed when he heard that retired NFL star Herschel Walker, who's nearing 50, wanted to compete in ultimate fighting.

"Yeah, I didn't think he could do it," Mendez said. "I thought it was a joke."

Walker had been out of football for 12 years. Aging football players tend to get flabby, play golf or relive the spotlight under "Dancing With the Stars."

But the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner always had an unorthodox streak.

After stints of ballet dancing, Olympic bobsledding, running track and field, gaining a black belt in taekwondo and retiring from a celebrated football career, Renaissance jock Walker has dived into the most physically demanding and controversial sport of his career.

At 48, Walker is training for his second Strikeforce mixed martial arts fight, scheduled for December 4.

"I was in great shape when I was younger," he said. "This is the toughest thing I've ever done. I think that's the reason I'm in better shape than I've ever been in."

He was chosen to pose naked for ESPN The Magazine's "The Body" issue, out last week, to show his muscular physique.

"I'm going to do something different, to be a little different than the average person," he said. "You can't be in the same cookie cutter."

Walker has never followed the fitness norms.

He eats once a day, skipping breakfast and lunch. After a long, intense day of training, he eats salad and bread for dinner. He doesn't care for meat or fuss about getting enough protein. Walker's a vegetarian.

"It's a mindset -- something I've been doing for a long time," he said. "I don't worry about protein. I don't worry about all that. I'm from old school. I grew up in south Georgia. They didn't worry about cholesterol or protein. They went out and worked and lived a long time, so I don't put a lot of worries in my mind. I just get it done."

Sometimes, Walker doesn't have an appetite and will go through seven hours of wrestling, kickboxing, sparring and practicing jujitsu without having eaten for three or four days.

"It's just unbelievable," said Mendez, who trains Walker at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, California. "He shouldn't be able to do what he's doing. I don't think it's possible to eat as little as possible and work out the way he does. There's no way. He's an unbelievable athlete."

Mendez doesn't try to change it either.

"You can't fix it, because it's not broken," he said. "You can try to understand it -- good luck with that."

And no, Mendez thinks it probably won't work for most people.

At 5:30 a.m., Walker wakes up to do 750 to 1,500 push-ups and about 2,000 sit-ups.

"I try to show the world at my age, I could do it," Walker said. "I'm not trying to be arrogant. My parents say you can't make excuses in life, you've got to get it done."

And he did. In his first Strikeforce fight in January, Walker defeated Greg Nagy, a fighter almost half his age.

Walker's genesis into a Renaissance jock sprang from chubby beginnings.

He was a pudgy boy with a stutter who was picked on and shoved as a child.

At 15, he said he "started working out after watching 'Love Connection' and started doing push-ups and sit-ups," he said. "I started doing it on my own -- that gave me confidence."

As he developed into an athlete, his interests varied from two-man bobsledding to ballet.

"When I started out as little kid, I didn't say I just want to run football. I wanted to be a great athlete," he said.
Walker defeated Greg Nagy in his Strikeforce debut in January and plans to fight again in December.
Walker defeated Greg Nagy in his Strikeforce debut in January and plans to fight again in December.

"It's mind over matter. You got to work at it. You can't assume you're a great football player so you'll win in bobsledding. It doesn't mean you don't have to work."

Walker's recent return to competition sends a different message to middle-aged men who believe that getting out of shape is the inevitable part of aging, his trainer said.

"It doesn't matter your age," Mendez said. "You can do it at any age. Look at your desire. Don't let age be a barrier to prevent you from doing something you want to do."

Shortly after his retirement from football in 1997, Walker began having symptoms of mental illness and struggled with dissociative identity disorder, or DID, formerly known as multiple personality disorder.

Herschel Walker reveals many sides of himself

Walker said he receives therapy to control the disorder.

"I have problems and as long as you admit you have a problem, that's how you become better," he said.

He even considered an NFL comeback before deciding on mixed martial arts.

The high-contact, bloody sport has often been criticized for brutality as fighters can knee, elbow and kick each other in the face. Walker shrugs off the criticism about the sport.

Fans attracted to 'forbidden fruit' of violence

"The idea of football is just as physical as MMA," he said. "I don't worry about it."

What if he gets knocked down by a younger, stronger, more nimble opponent in the ring?

"I do this 'Walker shake,' " he said. "You got to get knocked down many times, shake it off. Life is about ups and downs, and you got to keep standing up."

[GeneChing]

HERSCHEL WALKER INJURED, OFF DEC. 4 STRIKEFORCE CARD IN ST. LOUIS

NEW YORK (Nov. 24, 2010) * Herschel Walker sustained a deep cut under his left eye that required multiple stitches while training Monday at American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif., and will not be able to fight on Saturday, Dec. 4, at Scottrade Center in St. Louis.

"I feel terrible about this," said Walker, who was cut from a knee strike while training with AKA teammate and two-time United States Olympic wrestling team member Daniel Cormier. "I know things like this happen in all sports, but I had trained very hard and was excited to be returning to the cage again. I hope to fight again as soon as the cut heals."

The four televised fights on SHOWTIME (10 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast): MMA superstar Dan Henderson (25-8) of Temecula, Calif., faces former STRIKEFORCE light heavyweight world champion Renato "Babalu" Sobral (36-8) of Brazil; Antonio "Big Foot" Silva (14-2), of Coconut Creek, Fla., meets Valentijn "The Python" Overeem (28-23), of The Netherlands in a heavyweight encounter, Paul "Semtex" Daley (25-9-2) of England battles Scott "Hands Of Steel" Smith (17-7, 1 NC), of Elk Grove, Calif., at welterweight and ex-world champion "Ruthless" Robbie Lawler (17-6, 1 NC), of Granite City, Ill., goes up against 2000 Olympic Games silver medalist Matt "The Law" Lindland (22-7) of Oregon City, Ore., in a middleweight (185 pounds) scrap.

An announcement about a possible replacement fight for the telecast will be made in the coming days, STRIKEFORCE said.

Tickets are on sale at Scottrade Center, online at Ticketmaster.com and Strikeforce.com or by phone (800) 745-3000. Doors at Scottrade Center will open for the event at 6 p.m. CT. The first preliminary bout will begin at 6:30 p.m. and the first televised main card fight will begin at 9 p.m.

Bummer for Herschel.

I bet he's having Tofurky.

[Syn7]

i don't see how he could do that
i mean it's not like he could build up a heel personality
like say draft a wwe champ and put him in title contention in his third or fourth fight....
dana's a putz
the only guys in the ufc i feel are even worth watching are:
wanderlei, vitor, shogun, anderson, machida
but i'll probably miss their fights coz i just can't stomach the ufc anymore

so i take it you like brazillian fighters then.... you sound like an old pride fan back when it was en vogue to diss ufc in favor of its japanese counterpart... not that pride wasnt fresh, but come on... i can name a handfull fighters in each wieght class in the ufc that are world class contenders... off the top of my head...

[GeneChing]

Herschel Walker trades cleats for hard-hitting MMA
Tom FitzGerald, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, January 23, 2011

(01-22) 21:16 PST -- Talk about a tough crowd. You wouldn't want to tangle with any of the guys working out at the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose. The faint of heart would be encouraged to try the nearby fitness club.

It's also a young crowd. Most mixed martial arts fighters get out of the sport at around 35.

But one muscular fellow with a very familiar face is a novice in their midst. And he's 48.

In fact, Herschel Walker is getting ready for a televised fight. Yes, that Herschel Walker, the one who won the 1982 Heisman Trophy at Georgia, who played for the New Jersey Generals in the short-lived United States Football League and who made two Pro Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys before being dealt to the Minnesota Vikings in what was probably the most one-sided trade in NFL history.

He looks like he could still run over a safety. He weighs 217, a few pounds under his playing weight. He claims he ran a 4.39 in the 40 a year ago.

"I don't know if I could play every snap, but there's no doubt in my mind that I could help a team right now," he said after a workout for his Jan. 29 fight against Scott Carson on a Strikeforce show at HP Pavilion.

He wishes he could play for the Vikings again; he regrets that he was never able to show the team and its fans fully what he could do after he was acquired in 1989 for five players and six draft picks, which turned out to include Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, five-time Pro Bowl safety Darren Woodson and defensive tackle Russell Maryland.

At an age when most former NFL players are trying to find their way out of sand traps, Walker is trying to punch, wrestle or kick somebody into submission and avoid the same. He scored a third-round TKO over Greg Nagy in his MMA debut a year ago. A scheduled fight in December was scrapped because he took an eight-stitch gash near his eye during a wrestling workout.

"It's the hardest training I've ever done in my life," he said. "In this world, you're going to get hit."

He's in this world strictly for the competition, he said. He knows he's way too long in the tooth to win a championship belt. "I've been very blessed because of my physical condition and mental condition," he said. "I want to show people, especially kids, that you can do anything if you're willing to work."

A decade ago, he had no desire to get into MMA. "It was like a Tough Man competition," he said. "I thought it was brutal. There were no weight classes or rules. But 10 years ago, they put in a lot of rules and regulations. I was in tae kwon do (with a fifth-degree black belt), and I fell in love with the sport."

He said he felt if he didn't try top-level MMA, he could no longer consider himself an elite athlete. You'd think that a person who rushed for 2,411 yards in a season (with the Generals) and 1,514 in another (with the Cowboys) wouldn't harbor doubts about his athleticism.

Winter Olympics

For Walker, though, there's always another hill to climb, the steeper the better. He got into bobsledding and, with pilot Brian Shimer, placed seventh in the two-man competition at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. He won back-to-back American Superstars competitions. He even danced with the Fort Worth Ballet.

Every day he does 1,000 to 1,500 sit-ups and 750 to 1,000 push-ups. That's a step down from the 3,500 daily sit-ups he used to do, but let's cut a guy who's nearly 50 a little slack.

He picked the San Jose gym because it was home to several elite MMA fighters. They don't take it easy on him. When he started training there in July, he says he told them, "If you don't think I can do this, let me know. I'm not going to embarrass MMA or this gym."

Trainer "Crazy Bob" Cook is impressed. "Obviously he's a world-class athlete, and he's doing his best to be a world-class fighter. It doesn't happen overnight. He's probably eight months into MMA training. Most fighters at the world-class level have 8 to 10 years into this type of training. But he's progressing very well."

Overcoming adversity

Taking the road less traveled is typical of Walker. He famously morphed from a pudgy 13-year-old with a speech impediment to a chiseled football/track stud in a few years. Aided by positive parents and siblings and the local library in Wrightsville, Ga., he also became a fine student along the way.

Life after football had some dips and turns. In 1999, he was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder. Among the symptoms are depression, sudden unjustified anger and severe memory loss. He said he didn't remember the Heisman Trophy ceremony and doesn't remember most of the games he played at Georgia. In fact there were a lot of things he didn't remember, his then-wife, Cindy, used to tell him.

He checked himself into a psychiatric hospital in Southern California for a month's stay. "I had an anger problem," he said. "If I had not gotten help, I might have hurt myself or someone else."

He responded to treatment and threw himself into his company, Renaissance Man Food Services, which he calls his "chicken company." It employs about 600, he said. He got out of the management of the firm, at least temporarily, when he entered MMA.

"People think this sport is more brutal than football or boxing," he said. "It's not. In this sport, if you get knocked down, the referee is stopping it right away. Or a guy can tap out. In football, guys get concussions or spinal injuries - that's brutal.

"In boxing when a guy gets knocked down, his brain hits the back of his skull. He's still woozy when he gets up. He gets a standing eight-count, and the fight goes on. Is that not more brutal than this sport? I don't know why everyone's so afraid of this sport."
MMA card

What: Strikeforce mixed martial arts

Who: Welterweight champion Nick Diaz vs. Evangelista Cyborg; middleweight champion Jacare Souza vs. Robbie Lawler; heavyweight Herschel Walker vs. Scott Carson; and others

Where: HP Pavilion

When: Jan. 29 (Saturday), 7 p.m. (nine non-televised fights begin at 4:30 p.m.)

TV: Showtime, 10 p.m. (delayed on West Coast)

Tickets: Ticketmaster.com, Strikeforce.com,

(800) 745-3000.

I've started a STRIKEFORCE: Diaz vs Cyborg, as I'll be there.

[GeneChing]

65 articles on the newsfeed today.

Jeff Wagenheim>INSIDE MMA
Walker's Strikeforce fight no stunt

Herschel Walker needs no introduction, but I'll give him one anyway, in case you've forgotten about all he's done in sports or aren't old enough to fully grasp his legacy. That second possibility is certainly feasible for some in the youngish fan base of mixed martial arts, considering that the 48-year-old won his Heisman Trophy 29 years ago and had his Pro Bowl seasons way back in 1987 and 1988, which may or may not have been during the NFL's leather-helmet era.

And it's not like the former running back's pursuit of MMA is his second career in sports. It's more like his fourth or fifth. In the 1992 Winter Olympics, he represented the United States in the two-man bobsled, finishing seventh. Before that, he tried to win a spot on the U.S. track team for the Summer Games, running sprint relays. He's also trained in Tae Kwon Do for 33 years, and is a fifth-degree black belt in that discipline. It was that practice that led to Walker's latest career, which he will continue on Saturday night when he fights Scott Carson in a heavyweight bout on the undercard of Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Cyborg in San Jose, Calif.

Although it's just the second pro fight for Walker, his high-profile past makes him the biggest drawing card even for an event featuring two title fights. Hard-core MMA fans are probably more interested in seeing Nick Diaz defend his welterweight title against Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos and middleweight champ Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza put his belt on the line against Robbie Lawler. Others are more intrigued by another relative Strikeforce newcomer, Roger Gracie, a member of the first family of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, who has transitioned from a much-decorated career in submission grappling to a 3-0 start in MMA. But for the mass mainstream audience that Strikeforce and Showtime hope to attract to the 10 p.m. ET telecast, Walker is the man.

Because of that, some call Walker's MMA career a sideshow. In fact, just last Friday a sports columnist for The Oregonian likened Walker to Eddie Gaedel, baseball's 3-foot-7 walking publicity stunt from the 1950s, as well as the insufferable Tonya Harding and her money-grabbing jab at celebrity boxing. These are foolish comparisons. Mainstream sports are littered with self-serving sideshows, from LeBron James' The Decision to Mark McGwire and his steroid-era baseball brethren denying everything to, well, every moment of every day in Terrell Owens' daily life. Herschel Walker is no attention junkie. You might think his MMA career is a joke, but he isn't laughing.

"If you think I'm a gimmick, you can come to A.K.A. and roll with me any time," Walker said during a Strikeforce media conference call on Monday, ostensibly speaking to any fighters who doubt he's in this game for the right reasons. "I'm not afraid to roll with anyone."

The A.K.A. he refers to, of course, is American Kickboxing Academy, one of the elite camps in the MMA world, home base of the best heavyweight in the world, Cain Velasquez. When Walker rolls, he rolls with the best. That alone is justification for Strikeforce and Showtime putting a spotlight on him. True, he wouldn't be fighting on national TV if his name wasn't Herschel Walker. But that's not his fault. He puts in the work.

"I'm in better shape now," he said, "than I was in my early 20s playing football."

Ah, football. Walker never quite escapes from his glorious past, especially at this time of year, with the NFL playoffs reaching their climax. Who does he like in the Super Bowl?

"I'm going to pick Pittsburgh," he said. "I think it's going to be a great game. Both teams are playing great."

Perhaps Walker will break down some X's and O's when he's on this week's Inside the NFL on Showtime (premieres Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET).

Walker would love to be a trail blazer for NFL players.

"I've always tried to tell players that they should be training in some kind of MMA during the offseason," he said. "It would help them a great deal." From a running back's stiff-arm to a lineman's hand-to-hand battling, he said, "everything you do in MMA is almost correlated to what you do in football."

Any chance of him following his own advice, then, and using this MMA training to buff the tarnish off his own football skills?

"Who knows? At 50 I may try for football again to show people I can do that," said Walker. "I want to be the George Foreman of football."
Going, going, gone

There were some exciting exchanges during the UFC Fight for the Troops 2 event on Saturday night, but the most heart-stirring moments of the Spike telecast were the short features on soldiers who've sustained traumatic brain injuries while serving their country. We'll soon know how effective those touching profiles were in prompting viewers to go to fightforthetroops.com and make a contribution to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which supports soldiers severely injured in combat and the families of those lost to the war.

The last time the UFC held a Fight for the Troops fundraising event, it generated $4 million. MMAFighting.com reported that $600,000 was donated during Saturday's fights, but as of Monday, donations were still coming in.

The online auction is over, however, and it got the fundraising effort off to a nice start, raising more than $150,000. The bulk of that came in bidding for a UFC custom Camaro, which after 14 bids was won for $101,000.

That might seem like a lot to pay for a car, even a Camaro souped up with a 650-horsepower engine and 2,000-watt sound system, but it's actually a bargain. The only other time the UFC auctioned off a custom Camaro for charity, it sold for $350,000.

Still, looking at a picture of the sleek, black car online, I saw an opportunity missed. Instead of customizing the ride with subtle touches such as seats fashioned from the same leather as UFC fight gloves, they should have just splashed a big UFC logo on the hood. Sure, it's tacky. But what guy wouldn't pay a bundle for the assurance that no matter what he does behind the wheel, he never, ever has to worry about being the victim of road rage? ("I know that car just cut me off, honey, but did you see that logo? It could be Cain Velasquez or Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua driving that Camaro! No way I'm honking the horn.")

Also, I had to wonder if another prized auction item, a private training session with Randy Couture and Forrest Griffin, might have generated more than the wonderful $11,100 it did if Spike hadn't aired, as part of its Saturday afternoon pre-fight programming, a UFC Unleashed episode featuring Griffin being schooled, toyed with and KO'd by Anderson Silva. Couldn't Spike have instead aired Forrest's first fight with Stephan Bonnar or his big wins over Quinton "Rampage" Jackson or Rua, in the name of charity?
All the news that's fit to print

Thumbing through my local newspaper on Saturday morning after breakfast, I came to USA Weekend, the Parade-like weekly magazine supplement that's stuffed into hundreds of daily papers around the country along with the Target circular and supermarket coupons. I opened to a regular feature called "Birthday Buzz," and listed right there with Neil Diamond (who was 70 years old on Monday), Wayne Gretzky (50 on Wednesday) and Oprah Winfrey (57 on Saturday) was none other than Tito Ortiz, who turned 36 on Sunday.

A sign that MMA has made it to the mainstream? Perhaps.

Then again, the next thing I did was grab the same newspaper's sports section to take look at the weekend TV listings. For Saturday, I found a Celtics game and Bruins game (I live in New England), around 10,000 college basketball games, Australian Open tennis, two minor golf tournaments, HBO boxing, English Premier League soccer, even a rad snowboarding/freestyle skiing event. What I didn't find was UFC Fight for the Troops 2.

Now, I understand why the UFC is nowhere to be found in newspaper listings when the event is on pay-per-view. But Saturday's fights were on Spike. I've seen Strikeforce cards on Showtime and even CBS similarly ignored. What, Evan Dunham vs. Melvin Guillard wasn't as worthy of a listing as the crucial Arkansas-Little Rock vs. Florida Atlantic hoops game?

continued

[GeneChing]

MMA fighters say the darndest things

• Nick Diaz met with reporters in a conference call last week, and while he spoke a little about Cyborg Santos and their fight on Saturday, he also had much to say about topics ranging from his triathlon training ("It helps me get into shape for five rounds") to his vegan diet ("What I don't understand is that there are people who have gone to college and they eat like [expletive]").

The topic that really got him on a roll, though, was Jason "Mayhem" Miller, with whom he's waged a war of words ever since they were at the epicenter of an embarrassing brawl during the CBS telecast of the Jake Shields-Dan Henderson bout last April. There has been much talk about a Diaz-Miller grudge match, but nothing has come of it because Diaz is a welterweight and Miller a middleweight.

"I wouldn't mind moving up," said Diaz. "I'd just like to get paid for it, you know? I don't like when I hear people say I didn't accept the fight with Miller because I was too small. I never said anything about that. I said if I'm going to go off track and screw with my whole season and it's going to screw with my whole year and screw with my capabilities fighting at 170, then I'm going to have to get paid in full. I'd like to have a reason for doing that. I'd like to get paid double or triple to do something that crazy."

Then he turned his attention to Miller: "That [expletive] doesn't want to fight me. Talking about how he wants to fight me every chance he gets. I'll fight him anyway. I just want to get paid. [Manny] Pacquaio's making 40 [expletive] million dollars. He's making a couple million dollars. I'm over here [expletive] driving a Honda because my [expletive] is breaking down. [Expletive] all you [expletives]." Hey, Nick, if you're looking for more money, you ought to look into a Honda endorsement deal.

• Roy Nelson had an interesting take on one of the coaches for the upcoming season of Spike's The Ultimate Fighter when he spoke to BloodyElbow.com's Duane Finley: "I think Brock Lesnar is done. I think Brock doing TUF is one way to basically take a situation and make it win-win for him. I think Lesnar doing the show is a way to introduce Junior Dos Santos to the American fan base in the way the show does. TUF introduces 'stars in the making' to the casual UFC fan, and while JDS is the No. 1 contender, he still needs some help with the American fan base. So the conspiracy basically comes down to the fact that Shane Carwin has no one to fight in June. I think Brock Lesnar will walk off the TUF set and then Carwin will take his spot or Frank Mir will come in to 'save the day' and fight JDS for title contention. The reason I believe Frank would be the guy is because Mir is coming off a win and I was already supposed to fight Shane, so fans were already hyped to see it. Or Carwin could move in to face JDS and I could still face Frank. But it doesn't really matter to me as to who fights who because all that really matters is the fans want to see me fight somebody."

• Vitor Belfort worked with striking coach Shawn Tompkins in preparation for his last three fights, and he won all three by KO or TKO. Now comes word that Belfort, who a week from Saturday at UFC 126 challenges Anderson Silva for the middleweight title, is no longer with Tompkins and apparently has done some gym work with retired boxing great Mike Tyson.

And Tompkins didn't sound too pleased with his ex-student when he was a guest on Mauro Ranallo's radio show on Sirius last week, saying: "Well, you know, Vitor's done this before. Vitor, sometimes he gets a little clouded in his head. It's not that he brought in Mike Tyson or anything like that. Vitor just wanders, you know, and he goes where what's happening, what's famous, what's popular, and he'll go over there. Mike Tyson isn't teaching him anything. Neither is the other eight gyms that he's training at."

I forgot Diaz was vegan. And Herschel is vegetarian. Haaaa. Gives me some fighters to root for that aren't sanshou.

[Syn7]

lol Roy Nelson is a real piece of work ...

[GeneChing]

I dropped Hershel's name in this interview just to coattail on the news blitz.

Jenna Castillo on her Pro MMA Debut with STRIKEFORCE

[GeneChing]

Nice rebuttal. We'll see how it all pans out in the cage tomorrow.

Strikeforce Interview: Scott Carson Is More Than Ready for Herschel Walker
By Josh Nason
(Featured Columnist) on January 27, 2011


Let's be real here; no one is giving Scott Carson a chance against Herschel Walker this Saturday at Strikeforce: San Jose.

No one has heard of him. He's 40 years old. He's a bum. He's cannon fodder for the star. Why couldn't they get a real fighter?

On the surface, those arguments might hold some weight. It's true that Carson has only competed once in the last 10 years. It's true that he's only fought five times since debuting in 1999. It's true that no one except for the hardest of hardest of hardcore MMA fans knew of him before the Walker announcement.

But it's also true that Carson has trained with the likes of Chuck Liddell, Jake Shields and Tim Kennedy. It's true that he has been training at Mark Munoz's Reign Training Center. And it's very true that he is taking this fight with Walker very seriously and sees it as an opportunity for something bigger.

"When I was 30, I thought I might be too old (to start), but if wasn't for Randy Couture setting the precedent, I probably never would have continued to train with the hopes of fighting again one day," Carson said. "I look at it like I have this fight in front of me. I have to win this fight."

Who Is This Guy?

When talking to Carson, you get the impression he's a good guy—friendly, humble and very soft-spoken. This is not the Carson whose quotes about "keyboard warriors" months ago got the interwebs a stirrin'. Turns out that was more a Strikeforce PR/promotional creation and in fact, he abhors trash talking.
Herschel Walker talks about the battle.

"My least favorite thing to do is interviews. I don't want to come off like these other guys like 'I'm going to kill him.' That's just not me," he explained. "I do my talking in the cage. I just want to prepare and show my skill in the cage and not mouth off.

"Everyone says that Herschel is a nice and respectful guy and I think I am, too. I'd rather be known as a great fighter and not a big jerk."

In preparing for Walker, Carson has been reviewing his lone match and has seen some things he plans on taking advantage of. While modest, he is ultimately confident of his skills inside the cage.

"I don't think he's going to bodylock me and throw me to the ground," Carson laughed. "I train with some pretty strong wrestlers, so I'd be surprised if that happens. If it does, I'm real good on my back, getting up, reversing positions, scrambling and all that stuff."

Carson has been learning all that stuff since 1999 when he started training with Liddell in the shadow of Cal-Poly University in southern California. A high school wrestler, Carson kept up with training to simply stay in shape but eventually was coerced into fighting professionally.

But it was after his first taste of competition in 2000 that things went south; Carson ruptured the L5 vertebrae in his back. He would take more than a year off before returning to win two fights in two weeks. He then left the sport for five years to deal with the pain.

"I couldn't train the way I wanted to without it slowing up. It became unbearable and unmanageable at that point."

The Way to San Jose

In June of this past year, he was drawn back into the cage in a regional show against Lorenz Larkin. He admittedly wasn't mentally prepared and was knocked out in the first round after breaking his leg throwing his first kick of the night.

What made matters worse, according to Carson, was the refusal of the promoter to allow him to take an ambulance to the hospital because of the deductible he would have had to pay. He claims he had to hitchhike to the emergency room and forgo surgery due to the promoter denying the insurance.

"When you have a fight and the possibilities are getting knocked out or hurt and both happen, that's a bad night. When someone's leg and the future of them walking is worth less than your $500 deductible, that's when your promoter's card should be yanked."

Saturday will mark the end of a long road to San Jose, one that was delayed by a month when Walker had to postpone the fight due to a cut suffered in training. That gave Carson extra time to train, and for the full-time day trader in Huntington Beach, it's a chance to cash in on a lucky chance.

"If do lose the fight, it's a wasted opportunity. I'm looking at it like I've won the lottery, but I've got to to get the ticket back to the store."

[Phil Redmond]

Herschel Walker v Scott Carson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxBWUrEIpo

[GeneChing]

I gave my ringdown of the fight here.

Herschel Walker finishes Carson in 1st
10:42 PM
By Sergio Non, USA TODAY

SAN JOSE -- Herschel Walker's record in mixed martial arts remains unblemished.

The former NFL running back defeated Scott Carson with a first-round technical knockout on Saturday during Strikeforce's show in San Jose. Walker is now 2-0 as a professional fighter.

Walker knocked down Carson twice and dominated positions on the ground. The end came after the second knockdown, when Walker dropped him with a left hook.

It was a marked difference from Walker's MMA debut last year against Greg Nagy. That bout saw Walker rely on takedowns to grind out a win.

Carson (4-2) lost his second consecutive bout since returning to mixed martial arts after a nine-year hiatus.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Eh..disappointed with Carson, none of those shots seemed to land flush...

[GeneChing]

The crowd was behind Hershel 100%. It was like Carson missed the started bell, or maybe I should say, missed the snap. I commented here.