Valter Walker will attempt to keep his current winning streak in the heavyweight division going when he goes up against Marcin Tybura at UFC Fight Night 271 in Seattle, Washington on March 28th.
Walker was best known as the half-brother of UFC light-heavyweight fighter Johnny Walker when he first joined the promotion back in 2024.
A unanimous decision loss to Lukasz Brzeski in his UFC debut kept expectations low for the fighter, but he’s since went on an unexpected winning run with a unique twist, given that all four of his victories in the past year-and-a-half have come via 1st round heel hook submissions.
This appears to have caught his opponents by surprise given that prior to his UFC run Walker had never won a fight with that technique, and instead was most likely to finish fights via strikes.
Junior Tafa, Don’Tale Mayes, Kennedy Nzechukwu and most recently Louie Southerland have all now fallen into the same heel hook trap, earning Walker a new nickname of ‘The Foot Collector’.
However, the 28-year-old Walker will now be going up against a vastly experienced veteran in the 40-year-old Tybura, who will likely be a harder opponent to catch out with his signature technique.
The 37-fight veteran Tybura has only lost once in his entire career by submission, with that being an armbar defeat against Sergey Spivac in 2024.
Tybura bounced back from that with two victories over Jhonata Diniz and Mick Parkin, but was then KO’d in the 1st round by Ante Delija back in September of last year. Nevertheless, Tybura still remains ranked No.9 in the heavyweight division heading into this fight with the 14th placed Walker.
Walker vs Tybura joins a UFC Fight Night 271 card in Seattle that will also feature a women’s flyweight rematch between Alexa Grasso and Maycee Barber.
