Valter Walker has established himself as the most prolific heel hook expert that the UFC has ever seen, and now he’s shared the secret to his success. The Brazilian veteran is only 5 fights in to his UFC career but he’s rattled off 4 consecutive finished with heel hooks. This gives him the record for most finished with that submission, tied with leglock legend Rousimar Palhares for it. Given that Walker is just 28 years old and already on a clear run to the title, the odds are pretty good that he manages to extend that record at some point it in order to own it solely.
In a recent interview with MMAFighting, Walker revealed that there’s one thing that sets him apart from other fighters who’ve attempted to finish opponents with heel hooks:
“The secret of the heel hook, I’ll tell you now. I see many guys in the UFC try to do the heel hook and it don’t work. Why? Because they take the heel hook, first they don’t believe this is going to work and second, they [want] their opponent to tap. When I go for the heel hook, I go for [the] break. I don’t go for my opponent to tap.”
This is the same approach that many Jiu-Jitsu competitors have taken too, although some do consider not giving opponents time to tap to be distasteful. When it comes to MMA more people tend to side with the former opinion though, as there’s a constant threat of drastic injury from all aspects of the sport. Walker says that his take should be obvious from watching his fights:
“If you see my face, every time when I take the heel hook, my face, I’m doing a lot of power. Because I’m trying to break his leg. Because if my opponent doesn’t tap, the leg is going to break.”
Obviously this approach is going to lead to inflicting many more injuries on opponents, but it’s the same approach that everybody takes to striking. Walker even says that he must have caused a few injuries already:
“Every time, when I [get the heel hook], I feel the knee crack and the foot crack. The last four fights, I feel everybody’s foot crack. Because I go for broke. This is the secret.”
