Walker Vs. Craig Scrap Set For Rio

Two of the most unique characters in the light heavyweight division will clash in the UFC’s return to Brazil on January 23rd.

Light heavyweight Johnny Walker will fight on the UFC’s big return to Brazil at UFC 283 on January 23rd. According to Ag Fight, the charismatic and unconventional fighter will face off against Scottish submission specialist Paul Craig in Rio de Janeiro.

Walker arrived in the UFC with a lot of hype via Dana White’s Brazilian Contender Series, and won his first three fights via spectacular finishes. A freak shoulder injury suffered doing the worm dance (yes, for real) threw off Johnny’s winning mojo, and he went on a 1-4 skid.

Most recently, Walker claimed that he’d been unknowingly poisoning himself with the medicinal cannabinoid CBD, which he said was making him ‘schizophrenic.’ Now off the devil’s lettuce, he got back to his winning ways with a submission victory over Ion Cutelaba at UFC 279 in September 2022.

Paul Craig started his UFC career on pretty unsteady legs, going 3-4 with several nasty knockout losses. Things have really turned around for him, though, and he recently had a 5-0-1 run broken with a decision loss to Volkan Oezdemir in July 2022.

Craig will be going into the belly of the beast against the Brazilian Walker. The UFC hasn’t held an event in Brazil since the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off in March 2020, so the crowd energy inside Jeunesse Arena is definitely going to be strongly against him.

Also on the UFC 283 card: the highly anticipated fourth fight between flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo and interim champion Brandon Moreno. The two 125 pound warriors are 1-1-1 over their trilogy, leading to a very rare UFC quadrilogy.

A light heavyweight title rematch between Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira originally penciled in for UFC 283 will no longer be taking place in Rio de Janeiro. Instead, it will go down at UFC 282 for the UFC’s big year-end pay-per-view on December 10th.

Expect many more Brazilian fighters to be added to UFC 283 to make up for the loss, and to satiate the overwhelming desire from Brazilian fighters to finally compete at home in front of a local crowd for the first time in years.