UFC 235 was a couple days ago, and it’s safe to say that many of the fighters are still feeling the literal impacts of their bouts that night.
One of the most unexpected injuries, though, came after a fast and dominant win. Johnny Walker has continued his trend of winning his fights quickly — he has a combined fight time of just under three minutes for all three of the UFC fights he’s had since November 2018 — and UFC 235 was no exception. He finished his opponent, Misha Cirkunov, with a flying knee just 36 seconds into the first round. Walker was virtually untouched and immediately celebrated his victory by doing “the worm”… and instantly dislocating his shoulder.
Walker admitted to the injury in his post-fight interview, and Dana White confirmed it later. “There’s no upside to celebrating like that after — doing the kick-worm or whatever the hell that thing is that he was he was trying to do. It’s unnecessary. You don’t need to do it. What you did was impressive enough,” said White.
Walker, on the other hand, joked afterward that he just needed to “train the celebration” more like he trains punches and kicks.
Thankfully, Walker’s shoulder injury is relatively minor, and given that he’s been such an active fighter so far, we can probably expect to see him back in the Octagon soon.
