It’s nearly impossible to be a mixed martial arts (MMA) fan and not admire “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler.
The former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight champion recently put a bow on his thrilling 47-fight career, capturing win No. 30 in only 38 seconds with a vintage knockout of Niko Price at UFC 290 (watch highlights). While Lawler departs the MMA world as a competitor, a past opponent, Lorenz Larkin, gears up for a big rematch in Tokyo, Japan.
Larkin faces former Bellator Welterweight champion, Andrey Koreshkov, at Super RIZIN 2 this weekend (Sat., July 29, 2023). Before that, “The Monsoon” took a moment to reflect on his legendary one-time adversary’s career and recalled a funny run-in ahead of their July 2012 clash.
“I’ll tell you a story I’ve never even told anybody before,” Larkin told MMA Mania on BROADENED HORIZIN. “When I fought him, we were in Portland, Oregon. We fought there and at the hotel, he had all these f—king guys with him and they were in like f—king speedos. Not banana hammocks (laughs) but they had compression underwear on, running shoes on, and no f—king shirts on, they’re all yoked up. I was in the lobby and they’re all walking by me. I was like, ‘Oh, what the f—k?’ It’s just a big group of these guys and they’re all sweaty about to go run.
“Fast forward to weigh-ins, I’m cutting weight in the sauna and it’s getting f—king miserable because there’s a lot of people,” he continued. “It wasn’t that big of a sauna, but there were a lot of fighters in the sauna. I was b—ching and complaining because I was just over it at that time cutting the weight. I’m literally looking at my coach waiting for him to be like, ‘Alright, it’s time to get out.’ He already knows I’d been f—king complaining and s—t. In walks in Lawler. He sits down and then a minute goes by — we do it in increments — he opens the door and he’s like, ‘Alright.’ I’m looking at him, ‘Nah, I’m good.’ I’m just chilling, I start shadowboxing. But I’m f—king hurting. I’m over it, f—k this. But you know, that’s just the mentality. He walked in. I had no choice but to be like, ‘Nah, f—k that.’ I ended up staying in there like f—k, dude. I don’t know, I think an extra 10 minutes, man (laughs). Don’t be a b—ch when your opponent walks in the sauna.”
An undefeated 12-0 at the time, Larkin added a 13th career win to his resume via unanimous decision against Lawler before each was added to UFC’s roster through the purchase of Strikeforce. The fight marked Lawler’s last as a Middleweight.
Riding a great stretch of momentum in 2023, Larkin, 36, has no plans of his own to call it a career any time soon as he pursues gold, hoping to extend his unbeaten streak with a second win over Koreshkov. Larkin’s last victory — a knockout of the year contender against Mukhamed Berkamov (watch highlights) — kept him without a loss in his last eight appearances. The title is obviously the goal for the Riverside, California native, but at the very least, he remains inspired to be an entertaining fighter for as long as he has left in the sport.
“I was genuinely happy for him that he was able to go out like that,” Larkin said of Lawler. “Not going out and — the p—sy way about it, you know? People who really watch fighting, they know when somebody has got a gimme fight. Niko Price is not a slouch whatsoever. So for him to take that fight and know it was his last fight and go in there and do that and walk out of there with that type of fight being the ending of his career was like … I have nothing but respect for that. It just sucks when you see guys that should have stopped a long time ago that keep trying to go and get these wins and they’re just racking up loss after loss after loss then they finally call it quits but it’s just like in MMA, it’s not like boxing. In MMA, you lose three times and everybody’s like, ‘He’s done. He’s a horrible fighter.’ They don’t really look at the past. They’re just looking at that little end of your rap sheet.
“So, for him to go out like that, it was great to see. He’s always a guy who just brings it. He comes to fight. He’s not trying to f—king out point you and all this other s—t. He comes to fight. If the fight doesn’t go his way, it doesn’t go his way. But he is coming to fight not squeak by points off you and kind of do that. He was always a stand-up dude.”
Watch the full episode in the video embedded above or listen on Spotify.
BROADENED HORIZIN Ep. 29 AUDIO – 以下の日本語版:
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
