“This is definitely where I need to be, working with my coaches here and being on the grind,” she added. “I’m committed to my career, and this is where I need to be to make that happen.
“I’ve never been in the military, but I think about it like that,” continued Walker. “When you’re in the military and you’re away from your home and your family and everything that is important to you, it’s important to keep at the forefront of your mind why you’re doing what you’re doing, so I just try and do that.
“I try and remind myself that even though it’s hard, this is what I need to do in order to pay back all of the investments people have made in me, and that keeps me going.”
Coming off her unsatisfying showing against Miller back in August and the difficult decision to leave Guam, the veteran flyweight has been eager to get back into the Octagon, and having that return postponed surely only added to her anticipation.
Originally slated to compete in San Antonio last month, her bout with Liang was scuttled a couple weeks prior when the Chinese fighter was forced to withdraw, leading to Walker stepping in against Lucindo here.
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But the date and the opponent aren’t all that important to the returning Walker, who is far more concerned with delivering a much greater representation of who she is as a fighter and why she belongs on this stage when she makes her second walk to the UFC cage this weekend
“I hold my opponents in really high regard. I want to fight the best and I feel like looking at my resume, I make sense for that show and I make sense for the position I’m in right now,” said the energetic flyweight, who enters Saturday’s contest with an 8-3 record overall. “I was talking to (fellow TUF 30 contestant) Bobby Maximus and he was like, ‘Bro — you’re way too humble; you don’t talk yourself up enough,’ and I told him, ‘I let my actions speak for me’ and I think my record speaks wonders for me, too.
“My win against (Miranda) Maverick, who is doing so well, was back in 2018, and that gives me the confidence that I belong where I am, as does my loss to Erin Blanchfield, who is doing incredibly well. I fought her on less than two weeks’ notice — it didn’t go my way, but she also didn’t demolish me; we went all three rounds and she was the more technical fighter. Being in there for 15 minutes with each of them, holding my own against them, is what gives me confidence that I’m in the position I want to be.
“It’s frustrating to not see the growth between my fights in the house and my fight on August 6 because like I said, it was just a bad night,” she added. “But it also sets me up to showcase two, three-fold what I’ve been working on and what I’m capable of (this time around).”
