During what was a pretty busy weekend of boxing, former WBA featherweight champ Nicholas Walters returned to action in a fight that can perhaps best be described as a low-key affair. The 37 year old “Axe Man” pounded out an eight round unanimous decision victory over a 19-17(11) Luis Diaz Marmol in a bout that took place in Santa Marta. Fighting up at 140 pounds, Walters of Jamaica was workmanlike in the fight, and he won wide on one card while it was somewhat closer on the other two cards – the scores being 80-72 and 78-74, 78-74.
Walters improved to 27-1-1(21) with the win, his first fight since way back in November of 2016 when he was stopped by Vasiliy Lomachenko. Walters’ comeback had been planned before the weekend, with a number of dates from previous years failing to come off. Now that he is back, and fighting as a 140 pounder, it will be quite interesting to see how far Walters can go in his ring return.
A big fan favourite back in the day, Walters, who went pro in 2008, was good enough to defeat Vic Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire, with Walters scoring stoppage wins over both big names. The Lomachenko loss proved to be a bad one for Walters in many ways. It was quite a beating Walters took in that fight, while nobody likes a quitter, and Walters opted to remain on his stool after the conclusion of the seventh round. This was during a period in time when the sublime Loma was making a habit of forcing very good fighters to quit on their stool when fighting him.
It looked for a number of years as though the world had seen the last of Walters after that terrible night, but now he is back. Let’s see for how long and how far Walters can go. 37 isn’t all that advanced for a lower-weight fighter these days, and Walters hasn’t had that many pro fights. Maybe he can do something with his comeback.