A proposed light heavyweight bout between Johnny
Walker and Jimmy Crute
slated for UFC 260 on March 27 has been scrapped after Walker
suffered a torn pectoral in training.
As a result, Anthony
Smith has agreed to step in and face Crute at a UFC event on
April 24.
MMAFighting.com initially reported Walker’s injury, while
ESPN
brought word of the new 205-pound matchup. The card does not yet
have an official location but could be designated UFC 261.
After a pair of lopsided defeats to Glover
Teixeira and Aleksandar
Rakic, Smith bounced back at UFC on ESPN 18, when he submitted
Devin
Clark with a triangle choke in the opening stanza of the
evening’s headliner on Nov. 28. The former light heavyweight title
challenger owns other notable wins against the likes of Alexander
Gustafsson, Volkan
Oezdemir, Mauricio Rua
and Rashad
Evans.
An emerging prospect at 205 pounds, Crute has been victorious in
four of his first five Octagon appearances. The 24-year-old
Australian made short work of his opposition in 2020, scoring
first-round finishes of Michal
Oleksiejczuk and Modestas
Bukauskas.