Robbie Lawler Wants To Defend Welterweight Belt Memorial Day Weekend
UFC 181 went down on December 6, 2014 and it was a huge night for American Top Team’s “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler. After many tough years of hard work and a long journey, Lawler finally reached the pinnacle of MMA: winning a UFC championship.
“Ruthless” was able to edge out a very close split-decision win over Johny Hendricks in a rematch of their UFC 171 slugfest.
It has been not only a long career for Lawler, but also a long year as well. Just a few years back, it looked as if the knockout artist had fallen off the deep end after suffering numerous losses in the Strikeforce middleweight division. However, upon returning to the UFC in 2013, Lawler scored two devastating knockouts and then a decision win over Rory MacDonald, which earned him the title shot to start off 2014.
Unfortunately for “Ruthless”, a heartbreaking decision loss to Hendricks in their first meeting forced him to watch the belt be strapped around “Bigg Rigg’s” waist. But instead of dwelling on the loss, Lawler got right back to work by brutally knocking out Jake Ellenberger at UFC 173 and winning a five-round thriller against Matt Brown at UFC on FOX 12 last July.
His most recent win earned the belt and capped off a busy and rewarding year for Lawler. So what’s next for the newly crowned champion? Speaking to Ariel Helwani on today’s edition of The MMA Hour, “Ruthless” says he’s not sure what’s next, but he is hoping for some much needed time off and aims to return sometime next spring:
“It’s been a real busy year, but pretty much I’ll be ready whenever the UFC tells me,” Lawler said. “But I would prefer to fight like Memorial Day in Vegas or something like that. In May, June or July, somewhere like Vegas. But, whatever — if the UFC needs me, I’ll show up.”
Although Lawler vs. Hendricks II was undoubtedly a great fight, some fans were let down because it may not have compared to their UFC 171 showdown. Hendricks was looking to use takedowns to grind out a win, but it could have also been because “Bigg Rigg” began to tire, a statement that Lawler agrees with:
“Maybe so, I haven’t really broke it down very much as far as that,” he said. “But yeah, I feel like he was wearing down a little bit obviously from maybe the strikes and pushing on the head. And what he was doing was trying not to take any damage, which is really smart. But I’ll leave it up to everyone else to decide what they thought of the way he fought.”
Despite not knowing when Lawler will return, we do have an idea who is opponent may be. A rematch with Canadian star MacDonald could be in the works as well as a possible trilogy bout against Hendricks. Macdonald is the number one contender and was supposed to get the next shot, but due to how close the Lawler vs. Hendricks rematch was, Dana White said he wouldn’t mind the trilogy.
According to “Ruthless”, it doesn’t really matter who’s next:
“I would prefer the UFC to make the choice and I’ll just show up and fight and do my job,” he said. “That’s what I do. I don’t really pick and choose. I’m not a matchmaker, I don’t run the UFC — I’m a fighter. So I’ll stick to doing what I do best, training and punching people.”
It is clear that the champion deserves some time off. He’s earned it, but when he comes back, several potentially tough matches await him in. Will he be able to end 2015 like he did 2014?
