UFC middleweight champion Robbie Lawler has been in front of the camera a lot lately, promoting his upcoming bout with Rory MacDonald in the co-main event of UFC 189. While he may not be the dynamic on-the mic personality that some of the card’s other fighters are (okay, just one of the card’s other fighters), he’s still got a lot to talk about with regards to his late career resurgence, training, and his upcoming fight with Rory MacDonald.
When asked by Phoenix Carnevale what advice he’d give to young fighters starting out, Lawler’s big message was to stay smart in the gym:
It just comes down to, everyone’s different. Take care of your body, be smart every day. You just can’t go hard every day. You have to let your body rest and listen to your coaches; hopefully you have good coaches around you, good people around you. And just work hard as much as possible and grind away.
He also talked a lot about the reasons for his longterm success, most notably his recent coaching at ATT, and the early inspiration he had from training at Miletich Fighting Systems:
Yeah, I mean it just comes down to I have a lot of really good people around me, people who didn’t give up on me. I never gave up on myself, but I had a lot of people who helped me along the way, a lot of coaches, a lot of training partners and I’m here today because of those guys putting a lot of hard work and dedication into me. They just kept at it and it worked out.
…
I had a lot of really good training partners, Jens Pulver, Matt Hughes, Pat Miletich. Really good guys that I was able to train with, guys that took me under their wing, let me hang out with them, even though I was, like, 8 years older than the youngest one. And just beat me up, but I kept coming back every day. And I’m just happy that they saw something in me and let me hang out with them.
Lawler also talked about fighting Rory for the second time, continuing to hone his game, and a lot more, so check the whole thing out.
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