Strikeforce Considered Herschel Walker vs. Don Frye or Mark Coleman

We're 15 days away from Herschel Walker's second pro MMA fight, and it's safe to say that there is a considerable less amount of buzz heading into the sequel.

Part of that has to do with the mammoth shadow cast over the Jan. 29 Strikeforce event by the upcoming heavyweight grand prix, and the other part is most of us feel like we've seen this movie before: Herschel Walker vs. unknown fighter X. Been there done that. As you may recall, Walker defeated the unknown Greg Nagy last January, and many are expecting him to do the same against Scott Carson when they meet in San Jose, Calif.

And while pundits and fans criticized Strikeforce for the matchmaking when this fight was first announced, which was originally supposed to take place in December before Walker suffered a cut under his eye in training, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said on Monday's episode of The MMA Hour, that the organization originally had some big plans for the former Heisman Trophy winner.

"We were talking about [Walker] actually fighting Don Frye at one point or Mark Coleman. And I talked to the AKA guys, and they were like, 'You know what? We're almost there but we're not there.'

"It would be fun, but I talked to Javier [Mendez] and Bob [Cook], and they said, 'Look, we're close, and in another eight months or year, we could do that. But right now, this is where he's at, this is what we want to do and this is the type of opponent that we would like to fight.'"

Regardless of his opponent, Coker refused to agree that there is less interest in seeing Walker fight again.

"When you think about Herschel Walker, and you know, some of the MMA fans like it, some of them have their own opinions, but at the end of the day, this guy is a national hero to this country and probably one of the greatest athletes of the century, as far as I'm concerned. When you have Herschel fighting on the card, every major sports media wants to cover him."

When asked on the same episode about his future in MMA following this upcoming bout, Walker hinted at the possibility of hanging his gloves up after the Carson fight to help grow the sport.

"I really wanted to get into my training real heavily and I was doing well and I said I'd like to be more of a force and patriot in a sense that I'd like to speak out for the fighters and I want to put a good fight this fight here and then maybe become an ambassador for the sport," said Walker.

So if you tune in to see Walker vs. Carson, you might be able to say you saw Walker's final MMA fight. Or it could just be another tune up before he faces the Frye and Colemans of the MMA world.