On Saturday, Lauzon wants revenge and the bonus lead back
On Saturday Joe Lauzon wants revenge, and the bonus lead back
Joe Lauzon’s first fight with Jim Miller at UFC 155 on December 29, 2012 was a thrilling, bloody three round Fight of the Night, that many considered the fight of the year. Both Miller and Lauzon fought at UFC 200, with Lauzon needing just 86 seconds to stop Diego Sanchez, while Miller took 138 seconds to stop Takanori Gomi. Both were in the best shape of their lives, and barely got hit, so decided to finally have the rematch on Saturday on the main card of UFC on FOX 21 in Vancouver, BC.
Lauzon wants revenge. But he also wants to regain his all time UFC performance bonus winner status.
Ronda Rousey, Jon Jones, and Wanderlei Silva, among others, are all tied to #12. Conor McGregor, Lyoto Machida, and Anthony Johnson are tied for #8. Anderson Silva and Cowboy Cerrone are tied for #3. And after Saturday’s UFC 202, Nate Diaz pulled ahead of Lauzon with 15. JLau wants the #1 spot back.
We’re going to get it back; it’s extra motivation, said Lauzon to John Morgan, as transcribed by Mike Bohn and Ken Hathaway for MMAjunkie. We’re going to get it back and tie it up again this weekend.
Everyone was asking me about this like right after the Diego fight, because Jim and I both fought on the same card a couple fights apart. He was happy and healthy, I was happy and healthy and it was like, ‘Oh, let’s do it again.’ I was like, ‘Ah, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t know if it will live up to the fight.’ Now here we are.
It’s one of those things where I always liked Jim. I was always excited about doing it again. It was like, ‘Can it be as good as the last one?’ We’re going to find out. It’s exciting we get to find out.
If it’s up to me, it’s not that bloodbath where we’re both exhausted and like dying. A nice quick one. Either way. Let him knock me out, I’ll knock him out – something. If it’s something fast it won’t be the same, a little different.
You want to have one of those – one of those is good. You got guys that try to have those every single time. They have short careers, lots of problems later on in life. You don’t want to have that all the time. Here and there, it’s going to happen. It’s been four years or something now, so I guess we can risk another one.
I think every fight I get it dialed in a little bit better. The fight week stuff, the fight night stuff, the warm up. Just everything. Obviously experience goes a long way. Every fight I get a little bit better. It’s not big jumps any more. It’s just little stuff. But the little stuff is what I need.
The last time we fought I feel like I started really, really slow, which is not typical of me. Usually I start more aggressive. I’m going to start more aggressive this time. If it starts like Diego, I would love that, if it doesn’t, we’ll see what we got to do. I’ve definitely got to be more aggressive than last time.