AFTER claiming the World Bare Knuckle Fighting Middleweight World Title in devastating fashion with a 44-second first-round stoppage, Brad “The Weapon” Walton is already back in camp and preparing for his first world title defence.
The Redlands fighter stunned the combat sports world when he dismantled Kody Forrester in less than a minute, delivering a performance that not only fulfilled his pre-fight prediction but exceeded even his own expectations.
“When you’ve got a plan and it all goes to plan, it couldn’t go any better,” Walton said.
While the result appeared explosive and spontaneous to spectators, Walton revealed the knockout was the product of months of preparation and technical execution.
“The specific shot that I landed was something we’d worked on all camp,” he said.
“He’s a southpaw and I’m orthodox, so we stand opposite.
“We drilled that position over and over.
“The shot we planned for worked exactly how we wanted it to.”
The world champion will defend his title on August 15 at Eatons Hill Hotel, with preparations already underway as he told Local Redland Bayside News on day two of camp.
While Walton is unable to publicly reveal his opponent’s identity just yet, he did confirm the challenger is a training partner of former world boxing champion George Kambosos Jr.
“It’s a really good challenge because he’s another southpaw,” Walton said.
“That’s one of the cool things.
“A lot of the work we did for Cody can carry over into this camp.”
However, there is one significant difference – where Forrester moved up in weight to face Walton, his upcoming challenger is naturally much bigger.
“The guy I’m defending against is actually a light heavyweight, so he’s coming down three weight divisions to fight me,” Walton said.
“There’ll be a few adjustments once I sit down with my coaches, but I don’t think we’ll need to change a great deal.”
The August bout will be the second fight of a three-fight contract Walton signed earlier this year, with an Australia versus South Africa team event already pencilled in for December and the contracted third fight sure to be held in between.
If all goes to plan, Walton hopes to head into that international clash with even more hardware around his waist.
When asked what success would look like when the dust settles after August 15, the champion didn’t hesitate.
“Two nice world titles on either shoulder,” he said.
