Keith Berry Lashes Out and Harshly Criticizes Herschel Walker/Strikeforce... but Who is Keith Berry?

Whenever there’s a controversial fight about to happen or a controversial fighter that’s about to fight again, the online forums and even the press is inundated with a tidal wave of opinions from every spectrum of the debate. Such is the case for former football great and current strikeforce star Herschel Walker, who returns to the cage at Strikeforce’s upcoming “Henderson vs. Babalu 2” event. Recently, MMAWeekly highlighted a fighter who had some very, very strong words for Walker and the promotional forces driving his continued exposure. Here are all the details.

Keith Berry, who is described as “a WEC and King of the Cage veteran” in the interview, recently said the following in regards to Walker and Strikeforce: “I’d love to fight Herschel Walker, but they’d probably never give me that fight because they only want to give him the wins… He fought a guy that was 1-1 and he just looked bad. I just thought he looked really bad, and his hands were so stiff and I just thought if I gave him one good overhand right, he would just go down… Guys like that have a little bit of hype on them and I don’t think he’s a real MMA fighter. He trains at AKA with some good guys, that’s cool, but I don’t think he’s anything special. I saw his fight and it was embarrassing.”

I’ll start off by asking the obvious…who is Keith Berry?  After doing a little digging, here’s what I was able to find. Berry is a five-year veteran of the sport, with a 9-5 overall record. He’s 1-1 in the WEC, having last competed in the organization four years ago, with a TKO win and a TKO loss to his credit. He’s on a three-fight win-streak, but before those fights, he was on a three-fight losing streak, with each loss coming by way of (T)KO.

Putting it plainly…Berry seems to be the definition of a journeyman fighter. He’s got some good finishes on his record, but he’s also been finished a lot too. He’s competed in a few notable promotions, but he’s never made the transition to the major leagues. This is why I firmly believe what I’m about to say, which is that Keith Berry is talking out of his rear end and only trying to stir the pot in an attempt to try and drudge up interest in himself.

Herschel Walker is an easy target, plain and simple, and Berry just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to call him out and try to get his name out there to Strikeforce and the MMA populace in general. And while it may have worked (it got me to write this article, after all), it also made Berry look like a jealous jackass who’s trying to steal Walker’s spotlight. Keith Berry just isn’t qualified to say whether or not Herschel Walker is a joke. If Berry thinks Walker’s win was embarrassing, perhaps he should look in a mirror and realize that a three-fighting losing streak with each fight ending with you getting (T)KO’d is about as embarrassing as it can possibly get.

People need to get it through their heads that Herschel Walker is not Jose Canseco. Walker actually cares about this sport, he actually wants to become a better fighter, he appreciates and values this sport to a degree that many people are all-too-quick to overlook and completely ignore. This isn’t a publicity stunt for Walker, and the man has always been the consummate professional. By calling him out and insinuating that Strikeforce is trying to protect him, it’s you that looks like the fool.

But what about you, fans and friends? What do you make of Herschel Walker’s continued involvement with Strikeforce, and Keith Berry’s recent comments?