By James Slater – “He’s a small guy, but he packs a big punch. He comes to fight and it’s going to be a good fight to watch,” so says Travis “Freight Train” Walker ahead of this Saturday night’s fight with “The Ding-A-Ling Man,” Darnell Wilson.
Badly needing a win, 31-year-old Walker, 34-6-1(28), has lost his last three. However, as those fans who watched Walker’s last two outings – against Alex Leapai and Ruslan Chagaev respectively – know, Travis was very unfortunate to lose either fight.. The rumble Walker had with Australia’s Leapai was truly sensational (in a George Foreman-Ron Lyle kind of way – check it out NOW on You Tube), but the loser was the victim of a controversial and premature stoppage. While the points loss Walker dropped against Chagaev was of the desperately close variety (for what it’s worth, I had Walker winning by a couple of points).
Now, against the always-dangerous Wilson, a man who has moved up from cruiserweight, Walker will be in no mood to allow victory to slip away. A savage, naturally heavy-handed puncher, with a less than granite chin, Walker is rarely in a dull fight – win or lose. And against 36-year-old Wilson, this doesn’t figure to change.
Wilson may be getting on in years at age 36, and he may not have a great-looking pro record at 23-10-3(20), but he is durable (stopped just once) and he is dangerous. Seeing as how he has lost his last four, Wilson will be in just as determined a mood as Walker. The loser of this one really will have nowhere to go. As such, you can expect the bombs to fly from both sides on Saturday, with both sluggers prepared to give their all.
Wilson, who fought up at heavyweight in December of last year (when he dropped an eight-round UD to common opponent Leapai), takes the better shot, but Walker delivers the harder punch. Walker will be going in with a naturally smaller man (Wilson is 5’10” and approx 230 to 6’4” and around 250 for Walker), with a shorter reach (82” for Freight Train, just 75” for Ding-A-Ling) and as such I make him the favourite to win the scheduled eight-rounder.
I wouldn’t bet the house on Walker winning, seeing as how he has been stopped five times, a couple of times very quickly. But being the natural heavyweight, Walker has every advantage going apart from chin. The action should be lively and, after coming through a couple of scares, Walker will win via mid-rounds stoppage.
Of added interest to some fans may be the fact that Boxrec have 44-year-old Bert Cooper down on their schedule as also fighting on the Atlanta card!