A maturing victory for Lawlor
After suffering two losses – which his opponents came from behind to win – Lawlor had his back against the…
After suffering two losses – which his opponents came from behind to win – Lawlor had his back against the wall. The 27-year-old knew one more loss would spell his end in the UFC. For this training camp the Fall River native, who lives in Orlando, came back to the Bay State and worked with Joe Lauzon and company at Lauzon MMA in Bridgewater.
It was the change he needed.
One of the things… down here is the guys I train with are all my friends and I’ve spent so much time with them it’s kind of hard to have your head coach be your friend, Lawlor said. This helped because they would be like ‘look you over trained you’re not going in there and training again.’
I would put up a fight with them a lot of the time but then there were a couple days were I sucked. I couldn’t move I was horrible, my reactions were off. They were like, ‘look you’re not going in there and training these days.’ It was good to have that brutal honesty. Joe was definitely brutality honest and that helped a lot.
Cote, who trains with Mark DellaGrotte in Somerville at Sityodtong, is known for his standup. Though Lawlor has shown to have power in his hands he went back to his wrestling roots and controlled the Canadian on the ground. He was so dominant he left the fight without a scratch.
Most fighters at the top level formulate game plans before their fights. This was a first for Lawlor.
This is the first time I had a distinct game plan and really I just made sure that everything I did was tailored towards that. And it worked to a tee, Lawlor said. To even talk about the game plan is really futile at this point because it was 100 percent put into action. I didn’t get hit. I walked out of there unscathed.
It made a big difference. I always said in the past that ‘oh I don’t want to game plan too much’ because once something happens during the fight, everything changes. But after this fight I can’t argue with the game plan we set up or can I argue with game planning for future opponents. This is the first time I watch tape on somebody.