Newly crowned UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor has earned praise as one of sport’s emerging superstars, but fellow mixed martial artist “King” Mo Lawal claims comparisons with Muhammad Ali are out of line.
UFC commentator Kenny Florian likened…
Newly crowned UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor has earned praise as one of sport’s emerging superstars, but fellow mixed martial artist “King” Mo Lawal claims comparisons with Muhammad Ali are out of line.
UFC commentator Kenny Florian likened McGregor to “The Greatest” on his Anik and Florian podcast, but Lawal was offended by such comments on Tyron Woodley and Din Thomas’ Morning Wood podcast (h/t David St. Martin of MMA Fighting):
I think it was a good performance. What he’s doing with his striking range, he’s confident, but one thing I don’t like is when people say he’s like Ali. How dare you all say he’s like Ali. [McGregor’s] turning heads, he’s got Ireland behind him. White folks love Ireland and Italy, but Ali stood for something different, a whole different thing.
McGregor stands for himself and for his country, but Ali was greater than that. Ali gave us a voice. To me, it’s a slap in the face when people try to compare him to Ali. If you want to say he talks trash as ridiculous as Ali, cool, but that’s about it. As far as being as significant as Ali? Ali is the greatest and most influential athlete of all time.
You can listen to the full version of Lawal’s appearance on the Morning Wood podcast here.
Like boxing legend Ali, McGregor is something of a wordsmith and boasts the kind of trash-talking ability that would surely be welcomed in World Wrestling Entertainment, never mind combat sports.
The Dubliner’s 13-second stoppage of Jose Aldo at UFC 194 on Saturday crystallised his rise through the mixed martial arts world, having made his debut in April 2013.
But Lawal’s criticism of the Ali comparisons is about far more than mere fighting ability and more so in regards to his influence on fans and even the world in general.
In April of this year, McGregor called it “weird” and “an honour” to be compared to Ali as part of JOE.ie’s McGregor Diaries, but he also acknowledged the desire to establish his own brand:
In a way, that itself could be seen as another reason to compare the two, and by seeking that individual legacy in such a humble manner, the Irish phenomenon only seems more akin to “The People’s Champion.”
BBC 5Live reporter Richard Conway was quick to note McGregor’s knockout victory of Aldo—who went 10 years undefeated before running into the new champion—brought the UFC “one step closer” to reaching boxing’s greatest heights:
That’s another facet in which McGregor has huge influence; he’s ripped through the UFC’s featherweight division, and the sport now appears more popular than ever.
Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden did point out UFC chief executive Lorenzo Fertitta previously compared recently defeated Ronda Rousey to Ali, showing some plaudits can be premature:
Super athletes come and go, as do the comparisons that inevitably follow them, and while people may debate his coming as a second Ali, there’s no doubting the irrepressible rise of the first McGregor.
Though it would end in less-than-optimal fashion for him, there was something about Bellator: Dynamite that was right up “King” Mo Lawal’s alley.
He is a longtime fan of both professional wrestling and the Japanese mixed martial arts scene—two pl…
Though it would end in less-than-optimal fashion for him, there was something about Bellator: Dynamite that was right up “King” Mo Lawal’s alley.
He is a longtime fan of both professional wrestling and the Japanese mixed martial arts scene—two places where the way you present the thing you are presenting is just as important as what actually happens in the ring or cage. That’s why Dynamite, with its glitzy video entrance ramp and former Pride announcer Lenne Hardt doing her thing, was “pretty cool” for King Mo. He particularly enjoyed the entrance of Mike Bronzoulis, who came to the cage for his fight against Josh Thomson garbed in the armor of a Spartan warrior.
But what wasn’t pretty cool for Lawal was the injury he suffered during his bout with Linton Vassell. It came during a moment of hard-headedness for Lawal, who had just been slammed by Vassell. King Mo, the world-class wrestler, getting slammed by an opponent with significantly less wrestling skill? And the crowd eating it up, oohing as if it was a life-changing accomplishment?
This would not stand.
Lawal, grinning, escaped from the ground. The look on his face at that moment said this: Yeah, that’s how we’re going to play this? OK. You slammed me. You got me. Now here comes payback.
Lawal gripped Vassell around the waist and began launching him over the top of his head. If it felt like Lawal was intent on spiking Vassell on top of his head—much like the dangerous pro wrestlers from Japan whom Lawal so adores—well, that’s because he was absolutely trying to do that very thing.
“Hell yeah, I tried to drop him on his head,” Lawal tells Bleacher Report with a laugh. “I was waiting for him to wrap around me, and I was just going to pitch him backward.”
Somewhere in there, after the idea but before the finishing of the thing, it all went awry for Lawal. It’s why he’s currently lying in bed, unable to turn, move or really even breathe heavily without sparks of pain shooting through his body.
“I tried to do too much. I did a five-point move, but he posted his hands up,” Lawal says. “When he posted his hands up, I popped my hips and rotated into him. And that’s when I felt the click, click, pop.”
That “click, click, pop” was actually a tearing of Lawal’s rib cartilage and an occult fracturing of his seventh rib. If that sounds painful, well, that’s because it is. Standing in the cage after earning a unanimous-decision win a short time later, Lawal knew he was injured. But he figured he’d go backstage, drink some water and stay warm, because in his mind the tournament finals would be 30 or 45 minutes away, tops. He thought he could easily stay warm enough to prevent the injury from affecting him.
But then 45 minutes turned into an hour. Ninety minutes turned into two hours. When the time finally rolled around for the finals, Lawal was cold, and he certainly wasn’t able to avoid the pain, because the pain was excruciating. During the second round of the Glory bout between Zack Mwekassa and Saulo Cavalari, Lawal tried to start warming up for the finals. It wasn’t working.
“I was struggling. I couldn’t grapple. I couldn’t hit mitts. People in the back saw me and they said something to the doctors, so they came to check me out. And I just had to be real with them. I wasn’t going to go out there and fight with an injury. I spent most of my career fighting with no ACL or fighting with some injury. I was feeling good. I had a great camp. I didn’t think it would be smart for me to go out there with an injury. People hate me anyway. I want to fight, but I want to fight at my best. I’ve fought through injuries throughout my career, and I’m tired of it.”
And so Lawal pulled out of the finals, which saw Phil Davis beat the alternate Francis Carmont, who booked a spot in the tournament finals simply because he was the healthiest man left. For Lawal, there will be recovery. And when he returns to the cage, he’ll have several intriguing options: a bout with the winner of Davis vs. champion Liam McGeary, perhaps.
Or Tito Ortiz, the intense veteran who is clearly still hellbent on fighting the best, even though Lawal says there’s no way Ortiz actually wants to fight him.
“He acts like he’s a b—h. He ain’t gonna fight me,” Lawal says. “He says he ain’t gonna fight me because I’m ghetto? I’m like, what the hell? First of all, I’m not ghetto. I’m college educated. I’m smart. He comes up with the dumbest excuses to not fight me. He went out there against Liam and tapped twice, but only got caught tapping once. He wants to fight because it’s good for his career. He wants a big fight to jump into the mix.”
And then there is Fedor Emelianenko, the Russian legend who returned on Saturday night and announced he will be coming back to fight in Japan on New Year’s Eve. Is that a fight Lawal would take?
Uh, yes.
“Hell yeah, I’ll fight Fedor. I like combat. Fedor is one of the best I’ve ever seen, across the board. Watching him fight and hearing him land his punches? It’s something everyone needs to hear once in their lifetime,” Lawal says. “I wouldn’t want to be hit by him, but I wouldn’t mind going out there and trying to mix it up with him.
“I’d love to be the person that fights Fedor.”
Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report.
It is among the oldest of modern-day mixed martial arts staples: the one-night tournament.
The roots of what we now know as mixed martial arts began with tournaments designed to take place in a single night. The winner, having endured an evening of two…
It is among the oldest of modern-day mixed martial arts staples: the one-night tournament.
The roots of what we now know as mixed martial arts began with tournaments designed to take place in a single night. The winner, having endured an evening of two or more grueling bouts, would be proclaimed the toughest man alive, at least for a night. They were often gory and grueling tests of will power more than fighting skill.
“It’s hard to imagine those early UFC events without the one-night tournament as their conceptual foundation. While today’s events are star-driven, when MMA first started the athletes were essentially unknowns,” MMA historian and Bleacher Report writer Jonathan Snowden said. “The tournament format offered fans a chance to get to know the fighters and to follow their journey to combat sports immortality. Instead of two random guys fighting in a cage, it was two random guys on the path to something special.
“That’s a subtle difference, but one that paid off nicely.”
Tournaments were eventually phased out, Snowden noted, because it was inevitable that mixed martial arts would develop a star system. In fact, it started even earlier than many of us may recognize.
“That started in the UFC from day one, when Royce [Gracie] and Ken Shamrock separated themselves from the pack,” Snowden said. “By UFC 5, though the tournaments continued on for several more years, the top stars were competing in ‘Superfights‘ instead of slogging through the tournament format.”
Tournaments also fell by the wayside because it was difficult to predict how they would go, and thus was nearly impossible to build stars. If you wanted to turn Shamrock into a superstar, you had to sit back and hope that he would somehow make it through brutal hours of fighting to find himself in the finals.
“This issue came to the forefront when Steve Jennum came off the bench to win UFC 3 in 1994, entering the cage fresh against an opponent who had already competed, earning the win in dubious fashion,” Snowden said. “Worse, Mark Coleman won UFC 11’s eight-man tournament in an uncontested final after three fighters couldn’t continue on.
“Football teams don’t play doubleheaders for a reason. It’s too much to ask of even the toughest athletes in the world.”
This weekend, many years after being phased out in favor of single competition, Bellator returns to this early staple of mixed martial arts with a one-night tournament designed to crown the top contender for its light heavyweight championship.
Four men will step in the cage to determine who will face the winner of the main event, a title fight between current champion Liam McGeary and Tito Ortiz.
The Competitors
For Emanuel Newton, Mo Lawal, Linton Vassell and Phil Davis, the tournament represents a chance to leap to the top of the contenders’ pack with a single night’s work. But making it through the tournament is far more difficult than it might sound on paper. Even booking a spot in the finals—and arriving there with at least some amount of health intact—is a difficult proposition.
Throughout MMA history, we have seen these tournaments drastically change on fight night from what they looked like on paper. A fighter might win his opening-round bout but be too injured to step in for the finals. In his place steps the loser or an alternate.
The notion of a final bout consisting of a fighter who lost in the first round and an alternate who is only there because he was healthy enough to answer the call is not far-fetched. Ideally, both first-round winners would be healthy enough to make the finals. In reality, however, that could be a long shot.
The unknown aspects of the tournament are what brings the intrigue. The fact that it’s shoehorned into a night quite unlike anything we’ve ever seen in North American combat sports seems fitting. In addition to the tournament, there are Glory kickboxing fights taking place in a ring sidled up to the Bellator cage. And Bellator will have the usual fancy lighting and graphics that we’ve become accustomed to seeing from these “tent-pole” shows from promoter Scott Coker.
All in all, it will look very different than what UFC fans are used to seeing. It might even be a little jarring at first. Some will complain that it’s more entertainment and sport, and that’s a notion that Lawal wholeheartedly agrees with. Mixed martial arts is more than just sport; it is entertainment, and Bellator is bringing the entertainment like few others.
“When fans are like ‘this is a black eye for our sport?’ No, it’s entertainment. You got the game wrong,” Lawal said. “This is entertainment. We’re here to entertain. It ain’t really a true sport just yet. If it’s gonna be a true sport, they gotta do a lot more to make it a true sport.”
The two opening-round bouts will see former UFC contender Davis making his debut against former champion Newton. Davis entered the UFC in 2010 with a world of potential resting on his shoulders. A former standout wrestler for Penn State, he was widely considered a can’t-miss prospect. And in the first two years of his UFC tenure, Davis delivered on that promise, even scoring a win over eventual title challenger (and future teammate) Alexander Gustafsson.
But in early 2012, Davis lost his first professional bout to Rashad Evans. This was the start of something that seemed like a trend for Davis. He won the majority of his fights, but when faced with an opportunity to move from prospect to actual title contender, he fell short. It happened in a loss to Anthony Johnson in 2014, and again when he lost to Ryan Bader in the final fight of his UFC contract.
After the loss to Bader, Davis became a free agent, becoming one of the first major UFC fighters to make the leap to the new and improved Bellator. The move represented a chance for Davis to turn his career around and to finally cement himself as a champion; though it has rebounded in recent years, Bellator’s 205-pound division is much weaker than the UFC’s. Davis could be a big fish in a small pond.
Newton was already a longtime veteran of the sport when he beat Lawal on Feb. 21, 2013. But that win, which advanced Newton to the finals of Bellator’s season 8 light heavyweight tournament, was the start of a complete career overhaul. Newton won that season tournament, and then beat Lawal in a rematch for the interim light heavyweight title. He unified that title by beating Attila Vegh in March 2014.
Newton’s cosmic, rambling interviews turned him into one of MMA’s more interesting characters, while title defenses against Joey Beltran and Vassell cemented him as one of the sport’s best light heavyweights. He lost the belt to McGeary earlier this year, and has repeatedly noted his desire to bring the title back home with him.
Newton was happy about Davis’ decision to sign with the UFC, recognizing that adding anyone with name value to Bellator’s division is a good thing.
“I think Phil is going to bring a lot more light and a lot more eyes on the 205-pound division, for the fans and for the people watching,” he said. “Having a guy like Phil that has a name like that is very important to the growth of the organization. So I’m happy he’s here.”
On the other side of the bracket, there are Lawal and Vassell.
Lawal has long been one of the sport’s more flamboyant fighters. He came from a wrestling background, where he was one of the top athletes in the 84kg division for several years. After narrowly missing out for a spot on the 2008 Olympic team, Lawal entered mixed martial arts.
After growing up as a fan of professional wrestling, Lawal discovered that the theatrical side of fighting perfectly suited him. As it turned out, he was also pretty good at the fighting part of it, too. He captured the Strikeforce light heavyweight title with a decision win over GegardMousasi, who had quickly become one of the best fighters in the world during a stint in Japan. Lawal knocked out Roger Gracie to defend that championship, but then had a win over Lorenz Larkin overturned when he tested positive for Drostanolone.
Upon his return a year later–and after a run-in with Nevada State Athletic Commission member Pat Lundvall cost him a gig with the UFC—Lawal signed with Bellator. He debuted in the season 8 tournament, and was the odds-on favorite to win the whole thing until he ran into Newton’s spinning back fist. He lost to Newton again in an interim title fight, and then lost to Quinton Jackson in controversial fashion in the season 10 tournament final.
Outside of those losses, Lawal has been perfect in the Bellator cage, and he goes into this tournament as someone who can be considered a favorite to win it all.
Across the cage will be Vassell, a 32 year old jiu-jitsu expert with the memorable nickname “The Swarm.” Growing up in England, Vassell was an anomaly among his peers for his lack of desire to play or watch football, the country’s biggest sport. Instead, Vassell fell in love with fighting, and he began mixed martial arts training at age 23 in the Buckinghamshire suburb of Milton Keynes.
Vassell made his professional fighting debut in 2008 with a win over Chris Greig. Until 2013, the majority of his career would be spent fighting in England, with only one fight in Sweden taking place outside of his home country. But in September 2013, Vassell signed with Bellator, and made his debut in November with a win over Matt Jones. He would score three straight wins before earning a title shot against Newton; he lost that fight in October 2014, but rebounded with a knockout win over the one-hit wonder Sokoudjou.
The Predictions
Phil Davis vs. Emanuel Newton
This is certainly the marquee matchup of the first round, mostly because it’s Davis’ debut in the Bellator cage. It’s one of Bellator’s notable free-agent signings—or at least a signing of a free agent who is not already past his prime—taking on the former champion of the division who surprised a lot of people with his run to the title.
Davis’ time in the UFC will likely be categorized as a failure due to his inability to live up to the hype that accompanied him to the Octagon. But make no mistake about it: Davis is still one of the very best light heavyweights in the world today. His wrestling skills are prodigious, even if he has recently relied more on a developing striking game. If he’s smart, it’s hard not to imagine Davis eventually getting Newton to the ground and working for a submission.
But Newton, as he is known to do from time to time, can surprise people. And he can certainly surprise Davis here. His arsenal of spinning attacks can catch his opponents off guard, just as he did to Lawal in their first meeting. And his takedown defense is very good, if not occasionally stellar.
But Newton’s weakest area is off his back, and I suspect he’ll find himself there more often than not against Davis. With the prospect of another fight later in the night looming on the horizon, I think Davis will look to put Newton on his back and keep him there in an attempt to minimize damage. With just two rounds to complete in the first round, Davis should be able to do this often enough to earn a decision win in a fight that could be a snoozer.
Prediction: Phil Davis by decision
Mo Lawal vs. Linton Vassell
Vassell will go into the cage with a size advantage on Lawal, who is among the smaller light heavyweights in the game. But that’s the only area where he’ll have any sort of advantage.
Lawal is a power puncher with excellent technique honed by several years of training with top boxing trainer Jeff Mayweather. But his boxing game isn’t the strongest aspect of his arsenal; that is and will always be his true world-class wrestling. Like Davis, it seems logical that Lawal will opt for the safest possible opening-round fight, and use his wrestling to put Vassell on his back.
Vassell’s only real hope is to secure a takedown. Against Lawal, that’s going to be almost impossible. Lawal can win this one by knockout. But much like Davis, it seems logical that Lawal will opt for the safest possible opening-round fight, and use his wrestling to put Vassell on his back. He’ll keep him there and secure the decision win in two dominant rounds, setting up the final round fight that Bellator must secretly be hoping comes to fruition.
Prediction: Mo Lawal by decision
Mo Lawal vs. Phil Davis (Predicted Final)
Both men are heavy favorites to reach the finals, and I suspect it’s what we’ll end up seeing.
A fight between two excellent wrestlers often results in a striking battle, with neither man able to put the other on his back for any stretch of time. Davis will be overmatched against Lawal in the striking department, as he has never displayed any sort of knockout power and Lawal has a solid chin. Lawal, meanwhile, packs power in his punches and will do far more damage when he lands than Davis will.
With both men having already fought earlier in the night, they won’t be as fresh and crisp as they could have been in a non-tournament fight. So what we’ll see here is a slow-paced striking battle play out, and that will favor Lawal in the end.
Ahead of Bellator 138, promotional President Scott Coker took the opportunity to announce its next “tent pole” event, and it is a big one. Speaking with the assembled media, Coker announced that Bellator would be returning to San Jose, California, for …
Ahead of Bellator 138, promotional President Scott Coker took the opportunity to announce its next “tent pole” event, and it is a big one. Speaking with the assembled media, Coker announced that Bellator would be returning to San Jose, California, for Bellator: Dynamite on September 19 to promote a hybrid MMA-kickboxing event alongside Glory Kickboxing.
The news was first leaked Thursday by MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani on Twitter and was confirmed by Bellator on Friday.
While a cross-promotional event is quite the swerve all on its own, Coker dropped a few more bombs.
First, the event will be headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between reigning champion Liam McGeary and MMA legend Tito Ortiz. McGeary won the title with an impressive showing opposite Emanuel Newton in February and has a huge opportunity to make himself a household name by beating the still-popular former UFC champ.
Second, the event will feature a handful of kickboxing bouts, courtesy of Glory World Series. While no bouts were announced, it was confirmed that crossover fighters Joe Schilling and Paul Daley would be stepping into the ring for Bellator: Dynamite, rather than the cage.
Finally, the event will also feature a one-night, four-man light heavyweight tournament. Participants include former Strikeforce champion “King” Mo Lawal, former Bellator champion Newton, former UFC light heavyweight Phil Davis and former Bellator title contender Linton Vassell. The semifinals will take place over two five-minute rounds, while the finals will be contested across three five-minute rounds. The bracket, according to Coker, has not been determined yet.
Needless to say, this is an absolutely huge event that features a number of Bellator’s biggest names. The event’s name is a fitting reference to the classic Japanese “Dynamite” year-end events, which featured kickboxing, MMA and mixed-rules fights involving promotions such as K-1, Dream, Hero’s and Sengoku.
What say you, MMA fans? Do you like what is happening here or do you want to keep your MMA chocolate away from your kickboxing peanut butter?
Bellator MMA puts on their biggest event thus far for 2015 Friday night at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The show, titled “The British Invasion,” features a light heavyweight title fight in the main event between defending champion Eman…
BellatorMMA puts on their biggest event thus far for 2015 Friday night at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The show, titled “The British Invasion,” features a light heavyweight title fight in the main event between defending champion Emanuel Newton and undefeated British prospect Liam McGeary. The card also features “King” Mo Lawal jumping up to heavyweight to take on UFC veteran Cheick Kongo.
The main card takes place at 9 p.m. ET on Spike, and the preliminary card will be streamed on Spike.com starting at 7 p.m. ET.
Bleacher Report MMA will have complete results from Mohegan Sun Arena and play-by-play for the televised main card. Scroll down for results, highlights and a live blog of the action on the main card of Bellator 134.
It’s a Thursday night in the fight capital of the world, and one of the most polarizing figures in mixed martial arts is thinking about video games. Not Call of Duty first-person shooter home-console variety, but the 16-bit arcade classic type.
“I…
It’s a Thursday night in the fight capital of the world, and one of the most polarizing figures in mixed martial arts is thinking about video games. Not Call of Duty first-person shooter home-console variety, but the 16-bit arcade classic type.
“It doesn’t matter which one we pick,” MuhammedLawal says in a tone thick with confidence. “Whatever we play, I’m gonna whoop your ass.”
After the projected button-mashing beatdown takes place, an argument is made that Dig Dug would have been a better-suited platform, but apparently there is no room for excuses where he’s concerned. The only thing on King Mo’s mind in that moment was winning, and once he accomplished that, the conversation on such matters was over.
While there was no shortage of back-and-forth banter during the Street Fighter II dust-up, once the gaming had concluded, Lawal returned to his normal reserved self. Although his fighting persona is an all-eyes-on-me showcase, the real Lawal is on the other side of the observational spectrum. He would rather mind his own business than be the focal point of anyone else’s, and that’s an interesting paradox for a man who seems to covet attention in his professional life.
“I just care about winning,” Lawal told Bleacher Report a few weeks later from Coconut Creek, Florida, where he was training for his upcoming fight at Bellator 134 on Friday. “I don’t care what anybody else thinks or what they are going through…I only care about what I have to do to win. Everybody has different goals at the end of the day, and mine is to win and get paid.”
Furthermore, the word “business” is a crucial aspect to Lawal‘s drive as a fighter. Whereas most of his peers are on a constant push for recognition and doing everything in their power to compete under the brightest lights, the former standout wrestler from Oklahoma State University is all about his financial hustle. Using his gift of gab to promote a fight or land a high-profile matchup is all done in the flow of the game he’s come to know, and Lawal has honed his tools to improve his position in the chaos.
Lawal understands these things, and his knowledge of the MMA landscape has certainly helped him navigate his way toward the prominent position he enjoys under the Bellator banner. And while competing for the UFC—the most recognizable brand in MMA—could potentially boost his paydays and visibility, Lawal isn’t willing to exhaust himself courting its attention.
He’s fighting to get paid, and that is the bottom line. Yes, there is the fire to compete as Lawal is a born competitor, but his career throwing leather inside the cage is an ends to a means. The former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion-turned-Bellator contender doesn’t make illusions about being a prize fighter. In fact he’s fully embraced it.
“I’m not sure where it came from, but it’s something I’ve always had,” Lawal said. “Obviously when you get into competition mode, it is a different mode than when you are just sitting around and chilling. Competition mode is what you shift into when it’s time to work, and I developed that mindset early on through wrestling. When you are wrestling, every day you are going hard to prepare in the time you have during your training, and you use your downtime to chill, recover and get ready to do it all again. MMA is the same thing.”
And in the MMA realm Lawal is a unique commodity. Not only does he possess a fan-friendly style, but he brings a level of showmanship that is unrivaled by his peers throughout the sport. He instituted the flashy walkouts and entourages filled with dancing girls to hype up his walk to the cage, and no other fighter competing in the current era of MMA can claim to do it better than he does.
Yet, on the flip side, all the glitz and glam are simply Lawal‘s way of providing entertainment to the fighting faithful who tune in to watch him work. He wants to give the masses a show, and he’s determined to bring something exciting every time his name is on the billing.
“I just think it sounded cool,” Lawal said in regard to his King Mo persona. “I’ve always been a wrestling fan, and that became my angle. If you are an entertainer, then you bring elements of who you are into what you do. A day in the life is what I say. MMA is a sport, but it’s also entertainment, so you have to bring who you are to it. That’s what I do, and it’s part of who I am.
“I look at it as entertainment, man. I’m going out there to be entertaining and have fun with it. That’s what I’m going to do. Money is a big part of it for me because fighting is my job. That’s how I get paid and that’s my goal…to get paid.”
In addition to his attention-grabbing persona when the bright lights are on, Lawal has also never been one to shy away from putting what he calls “haters” in check. He understands everyone is entitled to their opinions, but he also feels that people are going to great lengths these days to act out and attempt to get their opinions heard.
There is no bigger platform to interact with professional athletes in the current day and age than Twitter. And it’s because of the length that people will go to sling dirt on social media that he’s completely backed away from participating on the platform.
“That’s why I don’t live on Twitter,” Lawal explained. “People get on there and rip on fighters and other people and it’s just crazy. I saw some girl or someone create a profile and use Ariel Helwani’s last name and start ripping on fighters. What does that say about you where you don’t have the originality to come up with your own persona and have to take someone else’s last name? You have to take someone else’s last name to try to become something? It’s a joke, man.
“That would be like me saying I’m going to be a good promoter, so call me Mo White or Mo Coker, and I start going to shows. Come on, man, it’s a joke. Be your own person and make your own way. The stuff that happens on Twitter is a joke.”
Putting outside distractions aside leaves Lawal more time to focus on his current grind as being one of the most marketable faces for Bellator. Although he’s been a key member of the promotion since joining the Los Angeles-based outfit’s roster in 2012, the organization has undergone some changes in key positions that have things moving in a new direction.
The biggest adjustment for the promotion was parting ways with longtime CEO Bjorn Rebney and replacing him with former Strikeforce front man Scott Coker. Lawal had a public feud with the way Rebney was handling business toward the end of his run with Bellator and welcomed Coker coming in and taking the reins.
With Coker‘s experience as one of the top fight promoters in the business, the future looks bright for the surging promotion, and Lawal is excited to see what the future holds for the place he calls home.
“It’s been a great feel so far,” Lawal explained. “The crowd turnout has been good, and there has been solid hype on the fights. The fights they are putting together are more exciting and everything about the production has been better. The canvas, the lighting…everything. It has just been better all around.
“I said it because it was true,” he added when asked about the colorful name he attached to Bjorn Rebney following his bout with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in May 2014. “I don’t even want to talk about the guy, but he did me foul because he was d*** riding.”
With everything moving in the right direction where Bellator is concerned, Lawal is looking to keep things rolling and is focused on making 2015 a big year for his personal brand. While he’s spent the better part of the past five years competing in the light heavyweight division, the 34-year-old American Top Team representative is making sure to keep his options open and will take his next fight as a heavyweight.
He will square off with UFC veteran-turned-Bellator heavyweight contender Cheick Kongo this weekend at Bellator 134 in a bout that has the potential to cement him as a two-division threat. While he was originally slated to face James Thompson in his first heavyweight showing inside the cage, injury threw a wrench in those works, and the end result was a showdown with Kongo.
Lawal is constantly looking for the biggest fights available, and locking up with Kongo fits the bill.
“I was supposed to fight James Thompson,” Lawal said. “Then I don’t know if he didn’t want to fight or got hurt or something like that, but he was out of the fight. They asked me if I still wanted to fight, and I said sure and said that I would fight at heavyweight, 205 or whatever. Then they said that Cheick Kongo wanted the fight, and I said, ‘OK, cool. Then I’ll fight him.’
“I don’t have a feel for anyone until I fight them or train with them. I won’t know what to expect until we get in there. We know he’s improved. He’s gotten bigger, stronger and faster, and his grappling has gotten better. He doesn’t have any submission wins on his record, so his submission game is whatever, but he’s gotten better all around. We’ll see what happens when we fight. I can’t predict the future.
“My goals are to get paid, win the belt, win big fights and live my life. That’s all it’s about.”
Duane Finley is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
Newly crowned UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor has earned praise as one of sport’s emerging superstars, but fellow mixed martial artist “King” Mo Lawal claims comparisons with Muhammad Ali are out of line.