Forty-seven-year-old football legend Herschel Walker, one of the sport’s greatest collegiate running backs, will make his mixed martial arts debut tomorrow night during Strikeforce Miami, to be broadcast on Showtime from Sunrise, Fla.

Walker is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. He played for the University of Georgia and won the Heisman award in 1982. He played professionally for the U.S. Football League for two years, and then 11 years for the National Football league. He was one of the league’s greatest rushers, amassing 8,225 rushing yards, 4,859 receiving yards, and 5,084 kickoff-return yards over 12 seasons.

The man is known for tremendous athletic ability, and his trainers swear he somehow has defied age to maintain possession of a body that would normally belong to a man in his twenties. He apparently only eats one moderate, healthy meal each day in the evening, and he only gets about four hours of sleep each night. Somehow, this regimen seems to work well for him. I don’t think I would be able to function, let alone succeed at any athletic endeavors on that little sleep.

Though Walker is new to MMA, he is a longtime Tae Kwon Do practitioner and holds a 6th degree black belt in the martial art. Overall, I’d say his chances of success in the middle levels of the Strikeforce heavyweight fighters are pretty good. His natural athletic ability should help him compensate for his inexperience, and his Tae Kwon Do background should make him generally proficient as a striker, and probably make him very good in the kicking department.

Walker will be fighting Greg “Dangerous” Nagy, who has one win and one loss in his professional MMA career. Both of Nagy’s fights have been in the relatively minor-league Rage in the Cage promotion. His won came as a technical knockout by doctor’s stoppage, and his loss was by unanimous decision. I’ve never seen the man fight, but on paper it definitely seems like he was handpicked as a fairly simple entrance exam for Walker into the world of professional fighting.

Walker seems to be part of a wave of former football players who are making their way into MMA. Several members of The Ultimate Fighter reality show cast were former pro footballers. None of them won the show – Roy Nelson’s big belly blocked their way – but they didn’t look that bad either. Personally, I don’t have a problem with football players becoming fighters, in the way that I have with pro wrestlers become fighters. Particularly for linemen, football is a legitimate contest of toughness, determination, strength and skill. If footballers want to test themselves in the cage, I say more power to them.

Dan “The Beast” Severn says otherwise, though. Severn is a UFC pioneer and a legend in his own right. He’s recently been quoted as saying that athletes from other sports coming into MMA are degrading to the sport, and he’s encouraging people who fight them to take them down and “rip off their arms.”

I don’t agree with Severn, but I respect his point of view. He’s been fighting professionally since 1994, and has had to endure more than a decade of being in a pariah sport in which guys literally risked life and limb for pennies. I can see him having some heartburn and feeling disgust as other guys jump on the bandwagon now that the sport has gained popularity and there’s a living to be made through endorsements and purse money.

Severn is 55 and reportedly retired now. He’s got an amazing professional record with 114 fights that include 91 wins, 16 losses and seven draws. He’s about as experienced a professional fighter as you’ll find on this planet. And his best days are undoubtedly 20 or 30 years behind him, but wouldn’t it be cool if he could be persuaded to come back into the cage and face Walker? That would be a fight for the ages. I think the Showtime folks could do a lot worse that to set it up as Herschel’s second fight.

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