Recent Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight title challenger, Robbie Lawler, looks to earn a second title shot by defeating the division's technical brawler, Matt Brown, this Saturday night (July 26, 2014) at the SAP Center in San Jose, California.
After a fairly disappointing run in the middleweight division, Lawler returned to welterweight -- and the UFC -- in the beginning of 2013. Though most anticipated some violent knockouts, few would expect the mixed martial arts (MMA) veteran to be a contender.
Well, two straight knockout wins began to change that. In both fights, Lawler looked composed, powerful, and positively violent. Then, he took on Canadian wunderkind, Rory MacDonald, and took him out as well in a huge upset. This earned him a shot against Johny Hendricks, whom he brawled with to a close decision loss. Lawler -- and plenty of fans -- want another five rounds.
Can he earn one with a finish of "The Immortal?"
Let's find out.
Striking
Lawler has always had huge power and excellent instincts. Across his thirteen year career, Lawler's skills have developed to match these talents, turning a hard-nosed brawler into one of the best strikers in the division... that still has a brawler's mentality.
From the southpaw stance, Lawler uses his right hand very well. Even against orthodox fighters, in which jabbing is more difficult, Lawler is able to successfully land with the jab. In order to land the jab against an opposite stance fighter, Lawler has to set it up. To do this, he either feints before throwing, hand fights then throws, or switches up the speed of his jabs to throw off his opponent.
Much of the time Lawler is jabbing, he's looking to set up his right hook. The right hook is one of Lawler's best strikes, and he looks to it often. Lawler often feints with his jab once it's established in an attempt to bring his opponent's hand forward to parry. Then, he can follow up a jab feint directly with a right hook, landing on the now open portion of his opponent's jaw. In addition, Lawler will sometimes throw the right hook right off of a jab while circling.
Lawler also likes to counter with his right hook. One of the biggest improvements to Lawler's game is his footwork; "Ruthless" is always just out of range until he attacks. This grants him many more counter punching opportunities, and he usually capitalizes with his right hook.
Lawler's left hand is also quite lethal. He frequently throws it after his right hand, either as a 1-2 or as a right hook-left hook combination. Lawler almost always steps with his left hand, ensuring it is a very powerful strike. Additionally, Lawler often uses a left uppercut to attempt to time his opponent's takedown attempt.
Since Lawler has power in both hands, he's able to herd his opponent into the other hand easily. His kicks have a similar effect, which can be seen in his bout against Jake Ellenberger. Focused on circling away from Lawler's right hook -- which was the most dangerous punch in Lawler's arsenal that would be effective at that range -- "Juggernaut" walked directly into hard kicks. The same concept applies to Lawler's left hand as well.
One of Lawler's most "Ruthless" combinations is the right uppercut-left straight-right hook.
After slipping his opponent's jab or straight right, Lawler will come inside with the uppercut. As his opponent is stood up by that punch, his left hand comes cracking into either the jaw or body. Finally, Lawler will attack with his beloved hook, either really planting his feet for power or circling as he throws to avoid a counter.
Ask Matt Lindland how the full combination feels.
Lawler loves to exchange punches in close range. He likes to reach out and grab/touch/feel his opponent's arms and defense, read his opponent's movements, and then attack with a vicious combination. Lawler's power does not decrease in these close range attacks, and his reactions in this range is absolutely phenomenal.
If Lawler's opponent pushes forward to shut down this range, Lawler is still quite dangerous and has improved in this area lately. Of course, it's also very dangerous to attempt to clinch Lawler; he likes to punch through his opponent as he reaches for the clinch.
In addition to being able to push away and blast his foe with punches, Lawler's attacks inside the clinch have grown more dangerous. Against Bobby Voelker, Lawler delivered sharp, angled knees into Voelker's thighs, body, and even went high with one.
Since his return to the Octagon, Lawler has repeatedly demonstrated just how improved his kicking game is. Lawler is now capable of absolutely ripping fast kicks to his opponent's head and body, which he showed against Bobby Voelker. He took it a step further against Jake Ellenberger, slamming him with kicks until Lawler was so confident in his range control that he was able to land hard knees instead of kicks.
Furthermore, Lawler's powerful kicks can force his opponent to attempt to close the range with punches. Against a power puncher like Lawler, that's a dangerous option.
In his fight with Rory MacDonald, Lawler proved just how effective his kicking game could be. Not only was it powerful -- what does Robbie Lawler throw that isn't powerful? -- but it could be used to out-maneuver his opponent. After shutting down MacDonald's jab with his own lead hand, Lawler repeatedly kicked at MacDonald's legs. This slowed "Ares" down, limited his own kicking game, and eventually allowed Lawler to land the combination that dropped him.
Finally, Lawler has long been a huge fan of the flying knee. Lawler does not have any pattern in his set ups; he just relies on his athleticism to explode into the strike. In his career, Lawler finished both Adlan Amagov and Joey Villasenor with flying knees.
Defensively, Lawler has historically had a lot of trouble with kickers. From his first career loss, a leg kick TKO loss to Pete Spratt, to his most recent, in which Hendricks repeatedly interrupted Lawler's movement with low kicks, Lawler has had a problem with fighter who can repeatedly land kicks on him. His ever-improving offensive kickboxing is a potential solution, but it's not nearly as developed as Lawler's boxing.
On the other hand, Lawler's boxing defense is quite impressive. Hendricks may have landed an absurdly high number of strikes in their five round war, but Lawler managed to deflect a good percentage of them. He's constantly rolling his shoulders, raising his guard, and rolling with punches in order to decrease their impact.
Wrestling
With just a single takedown in the last seven years according to Fightmetric, it's pretty clear that Lawler doesn't have much of an interest in taking his opponent down. Although, for whatever it's worth (i.e. not much), Lawler did momentarily look to land a knee pick on Jake Ellenberger.
Obviously, takedown defense is absolutely vital for a fighter as offensively potent as Lawler. Years and years of training with grappler-heavy camps like Miletich Fighting Systems, Power MMA, and American Top Team have allowed Lawler to develop an extremely fast sprawl. Plus, he can fight off takedowns against the fence, something that usually problems fighters who rely on speedy sprawls.
Lawler has proven in his recent bouts that he's excellent at damaging his foes who look to take him down. In his return bout to the UFC, Lawler faced one of the greatest -- both in credentials and ability -- wrestlers to ever fight inside the Octagon, Josh Koscheck.
Koscheck and his incredible blast double managed to get Lawler to the mat early, but the Iowan was able to spring back to his feet. After Lawler sprawled out on another shot, "Kos" took a moment to relax. Lawler, who was throwing some half-speed punches at the time, quickly stood up over Koscheck.
Now on his feet, Lawler really turned into a couple hard punches to Koscheck's jaw. Then, he circled around a stunned Koscheck and continued to hammer away. Koscheck slumped against the fence, and the ref stopped the fight. In a veteran move, Lawler had turned a moment of inactivity into a knockout victory.
In another recent example, Lawler managed to do a decent amount of damage to Rory MacDonald during a single leg. As MacDonald tried to off-balance Lawler, "Ruthless" landed a series of right hands that knocked the Canadian off of his leg.
If there is one flaw with Lawler's wrestling, it's that he's occasionally impatient. He doesn't fully complete his sprawl, instead attempting to spin away before his opponent has released his grip. This allows determined wrestlers, such as Tim Kennedy, to immediately follow up with another shot that Lawler is ill prepared for.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ)
Similar to his wrestling, Lawler has no interest in submitting his opponent. However, his guard work has greatly improved over the years, as has his submission defense.
Once Josh Koscheck -- or most NCAA champion wrestlers for that matter -- secures a takedown, it's almost a foregone conclusion that his opponent will spend the rest of the round/fight on his back.
However, Lawler flipped the script by using his butterfly guard. After lifting Koscheck's right leg with his instep, he hooked it with his left arm. Underneath Koscheck's left leg was Lawler's other instep, putting the pair in what is essentially a deep half/X-guard hybrid. He again elevated Koscheck and stood up in base as he did. Though Koscheck would prevent a full stand up by grabbing a front headlock, Lawler eventually fought his way out of that and returned to his feet.
In his last fight, Lawler also quickly stood up when he was taken down. From the half guard, Lawler slid his knee across Ellenberger's stomach. Then, he created enough space that he could get his foot on Ellenberger's chest and kicked him backwards.
Lawler may have four submission losses on his record, but all four of them were at a higher weight class AND were to excellent submission fighters. Just to break it down a bit, his two most recent submission losses are to "Jacare" Souza and Jake Shields. That's two of the best submission grapplers to ever compete in MMA, and there's no shame in being caught by either.
The other two submission losses are to Jason Miller and Evan Tanner. Though these two aren't quite on the level of the above grapplers, they were still excellent submission fighters. Plus, the more recent loss of the two was all the way back in 2006, so it can't really be held against the modern day version of Lawler.
Basically, Lawler's defensive grappling is better than his record implies.
Best chance for success
In his last couple fights, Matt Brown has shown that his body is not nearly as durable as his chin. Lawler, who has a long history of working the body with punches and more recently kicks, should most certainly look to take advantage of this.
Should Lawler successfully hurt Brown's body, he cannot stop attacking it. Erick Silva abandoned Brown's injured liver to pursue a submission, which could have been a smart decision considering Brown's history of submission losses. On the other hand, Lawler should focus on landing as many body shots as possible, only switching to Brown's head if "The Immortal" leaves it wide open.
It's very important that Lawler controls the flow of this battle. He cannot allow Brown to get his rhythm and momentum going, as Lawler's reaction of rolling with punches will not work well against Brown's absurdly violent mixes of punches, elbows, knees and kicks. Instead, Lawler needs to pick his shots, do damage, and then move out of the way.
That's not to say he cannot win a slug fest with Matt Brown, but it's not the best idea.
Can Lawler earn another title shot, or will Matt Brown continue his incredible win streak?