Johnny Walker Survives Knockdown, Stops No. 6 Waldo Cortes Acosta in Third Round

By The Arena Staff

LAS VEGAS, Nov. 7, 2026 — For two rounds on Saturday night, Waldo Cortes Acosta did what he promised he would do to Johnny Walker. He chased him down, put him on the canvas and pounded on him. Then Walker found the kick he had been looking for.

Walker stopped the No. 6-ranked heavyweight at 2:27 of the third round in the main event of UFC Fight Night at the Meta APEX, a comeback win that CBS Sports said turns a former light heavyweight into a ranked heavyweight closing in on contention.

Neither man had much time to prepare. Both accepted the main event on nine days' notice, according to CBS Sports, after the scheduled Gabriel Bonfim-Sean Brady headliner was canceled, as MMA Fighting reported. For Cortes Acosta, it meant risking his top-10 ranking against an unranked opponent. For Walker, it meant skipping the slow climb he had planned after a knockout of Mick Parkin in his heavyweight debut last month.

The fight looked like it was going Cortes Acosta's way. Walker circled and chopped at his legs with calf kicks, the same approach Walker's training partner Alexander Volkov used to beat Cortes Acosta earlier this year. But the smaller Octagon at the APEX let Cortes Acosta, a former professional baseball pitcher, cut off the cage, and he dropped Walker against the fence in the first round. He likely took the second too, CBS Sports wrote, finishing it on top after Walker fell over throwing a wild counter.

Cortes Acosta opened the third with a hard right that rattled Walker again. Walker kept kicking. A head kick, which CBS Sports described as a question mark kick, left Cortes Acosta badly hurt, and Walker chased him down and finished him with punches.

Walker had been knocked out six times in his career, CBS Sports noted, and he used his postfight interview to answer anyone who doubted his chin. "Without a heavy guy like this who could take a punch, it wouldn't be a good fight," he said, according to MMA Fighting. "Who don't have a chin now?"

Walker said before the fight that cutting more than 40 pounds to make light heavyweight had left him "too dizzy, too weak," and that his bout with Dominick Reyes earlier this year was the last straw. Two fights into his heavyweight run, he has two knockouts. Cortes Acosta, who opened 2026 by knocking out Derrick Lewis, has now lost three straight.

In the co-main event, No. 2 strawweight Tatiana Suarez beat Virna Jandiroba by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28), surviving a late first-round kneebar attempt, in a win that could put her in line for a shot at champion Mackenzie Dern.

Sources: CBS Sports, MMA Fighting and UFC.com.