Dangerous Finishers: Paul Craig vs Johnny Walker booked for UFC 283
We’ve just been informed of an incredibly exciting light-heavyweight affair going down early next year, as a pair of ranked contenders in Paul Craig (no. 9) and Johnny Walker (no. 11) are slated to oppose one another at UFC 283.
UFC 283 is to go down on January 21, 2023, live on pay-per-view from the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This is a very intriguing contest for so many reasons.
Paul Craig is one of the premier grapplers in the entire sport, and though Johnny Walker has been finished with strikes on a few separate occasions, he’s one of the most dangerous strikers in the sport.
Craig first came to the UFC with a record of 8-0 in December of 2016 as the BAMMA light-heavyweight champion.
Following victory in his promotional debut (armbar), Craig would go 2-4 over his next six outings, being knocked out in three of them.
But, since then, he’s gone 5-1-1, avenging the draw via TKO over former PRIDE & UFC champion Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua, and most recently losing to Volkan Oezdemir.
Craig wanted that fight on the mat badly, and he just couldn’t get, or keep it there.
Oezdemir wanted no part of the ground game against Craig, and it’s unfortunate, because Craig’s striking actually looked great in this contest. If he stuck with that, he may have ended up winning the fight.
However, given Oezdemir’s heavy hands, he opted to pull guard throughout the 15-minute bout, marking just the second time he’s ever gone the distance.
Walker on the other hand came to the UFC a couple years later in November of 2018; he was the UCMMA & EBO light-heavyweight champion, he had a record of 14-3 with 13 finishes, and two of those defeats came up at heavyweight.
The Brazilian striker would go 3-0 inside the octagon in just three months’ time, all three wins coming via first round knockout in devastating fashion. He couldn’t have been more impressive early on, and many people were pegging him as the man to defeat Jon Jones.
However, he’d run into Corey Anderson in his next outing, who TKO’d him in the opening round himself.
A second-straight defeat would follow, to Nikita Krylov via unanimous decision, before he was able to rebound with another first round knockout victory, this one over the surging Ryan Spann, a fellow Contender Series alumn that was 4-0 in the UFC at the time.
This win didn’t come without its troubles, as Walker was nearly knocked out again more than once. But he ended up landing some vicious elbows to the head of Spann while he was being pressed into the fence, resulting in yet another KO victory for him.
However, another set of back-to-back defeats would follow, to Thiago Santos (UD) and Jamahal Hill (KO), before he’d win his most recent bout against Ion Cutelaba. He also defeated Cutelaba in the opening round, picking up the first submission victory (rear naked choke) of his UFC career in the process.
Craig comes into the bout with a record of 16-5-1 (16 finishes), while Walker comes in with a record of 19-7 (18 finishes).
Of Craig’s 16 wins, 14 come via submission with two knockouts, while of Walker’s 19 wins, 15 come via knockout with three submissions. This is a classic striker versus grappler match up, though each of them of course has skills in all areas.
What’s more, of their 48 total bouts, only five have gone the distance; Walker has just one decision victory, and Craig, as mentioned above, has never won via decision.
This is going to be a good one! Who are you picking?
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