At the age of 48, professional mixed martial arts fighter and former Cowboy (twice over) Herschel Walker is considering a return to professional football.
If it sounds crazy, that’s because it is; seems crazy, anyway. Then again, Walker is no ordinary athlete. Ordinary athletes don’t typically take up a sport as violent and physically demanding as professional MMA after their 45th birthday. For Walker, rejoining the sport of football after his 50th may soon be his next goal.
"I've told everyone that at 50 I might try football again to show people I can do that," Walker said Monday during a promotional conference call for his upcoming fight, per ESPN. "I want to be the George Foreman of football, come back and do that one more time."
Walker played 15 seasons of professional football after a legendary career at the University of Georgia that culminated in a Heisman Trophy and an early entrance into the professional ranks as a member of the USFL’s New Jersey Generals. But he will forever be linked with the greatest fleecing in the history of NFL transactions, when Dallas sent him to Minnesota for a slew of draft picks, many of which became building blocks in the team’s early-nineties dynasty.
Entering his second career MMA fight though, Walker believes that his days playing in the NFL might not yet be done, citing the Herculean conditioning usually required of fighters--and which, as one glance at Walker's physique might tell you, the Wright, Ga. native posseses.
"I'm a much better-conditioned athlete now than when I was playing football," Walker reasons. "I'm 48 and in better shape now than I was when I was in my early 20s, playing football."
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