Walker claims online backlash left Steveson mentally absent before 12-second UFC knockout

Gable Steveson entered UFC 331 on September 19 as a heavy favourite against Sean Sharaf, but the relatively unknown heavyweight needed just 12 seconds to end the fight, landing a left hook that put the Olympic gold medalist to sleep and handing him the first loss of his MMA career.

Teammate Valter Walker believes the result was shaped long before the cage door closed. Speaking to Red Corner MMA, Walker said the torrent of online abuse directed at Steveson during fight week — including widespread circulation of a mug shot and references to sexual assault allegations from 2019 — had visibly destabilised him.

“A lot of guys post a lot of sht about him on the internet and he lost a lot of followers,” Walker said. “People are calling him a rapist. I think he lost maybe half a million followers on Instagram. And I think that sht can really shake your head before a fight. You know, UFC is very big pressure. I think people really f*cked with him mentally. He went into the cage, but mentally, he wasn’t there.”

The hostility was not confined to social media. Steveson was booed loudly at both the pre-fight press conference and the weigh-ins, with Sharaf repeatedly raising past controversies during their face-offs. Walker argues the cumulative effect amounted to a sustained psychological assault that Steveson could not shake before the opening bell.

Sharaf’s victory was all the more striking given his record heading into the bout. The American heavyweight was 0-2 inside the UFC, making the 12-second finish of a decorated wrestler with Olympic pedigree one of the more startling upsets the promotion has seen in recent memory.

Steveson, who won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in freestyle wrestling, had been positioned as a marquee prospect in the UFC’s heavyweight division. His sophomore outing was supposed to build on that platform; instead, it raised serious questions about his readiness — mental as much as physical — for elite MMA competition.