Luke Rockhold – photo by Josh Hedges/Mike Roach/UFC
With a second Strikeforce middleweight title fight scrapped due to a nagging wrist injury to champ Luke Rockhold (10-1), opponent Lorenz Larkin and his management have been very vocal when talking about the cancelled bout holding nothing back, claiming that Rockhold is dodging ‘The Monsoon.’
On Monday (Nov. 26), Rockhold had his chance to reply to the comments from Larkin’s, telling The MMA Hour host Ariel Helwani that “(Larkin’s) needs to know his place.”
“I’d fight Lorenz Larkin any day, trust me,” he said. “In my mind, that’s easy money. I want to fight … I’m not trying to push my way into UFC like this. I want money. I’m watching my bank account go down, and I want to build it back up, so as soon as I can, I want to start fighting….”
“It does piss me off,” he said. “You’re saying I’m mentally weak or something like that? When I have ever shown signs of mental weakness in any of my fights? He might be 13-0 but we all heard him crying in his fight against [King] Mo [Lawal] the fight before last. I heard moans and cries. There’s no point in coming at me, telling me I’m mentally weak and I’m reluctant to fight you. The guy needs to know his place.”
Rockhold and Larkin had been scheduled to fight in November until the champ injured a ligament in his wrist and the fight was rescheduled for January’s Strikeforce: Champions event. The wrist injury has not full healed despite undergoing several different therapies, leaving Rockhold unable to put in a full training camp.