King Mo comments on training with Toney

Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal says it was a standing guillotine that forced him to tap out to James Toney.

Lawal is one of the more notable fighters to witness the boxing champ’s preparation for his first MMA fight, which comes next month against Randy Couture at UFC 118.

And while Lawal wasn’t sold on Toney at first, the experience changed his tune.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” he recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio).

Lawal, a former Division I amateur freestyle wrestler at Oklahoma State, was called in to test Toney’s ability to stop a takedown. For the most part, it was as he expected. He had no trouble putting the boxer on his back and thought Couture wouldn’t either.

“I was thinking, ‘This (defense) is isn’t going to work,'” Lawal said. “(I’ll get the) takedown.”

Then Toney began to snake an arm underneath his neck and squeeze for the choke. Suddenly, it wasn’t so easy to have his way.

“After about eight tries, he kind of got me,” Lawal said of his tap. “I said, ‘Damn.’ He’s kind of strong, too. The dude is kind of strong.”

Toney later conjured images of a ground battle between the two when he said he applied a rear-naked choke during the training session. But Lawal said that’s just the boxer’s inexperience on display.

“[Toney] really doesn’t know his terminology when it comes to MMA,” Lawal said. “He doesn’t really know terminology as far as what is MMA.”