Lorenz Larkin went into his last fight with a lot on the line — there was much to gain, but also a lot to lose. He took a big risk by not re-signing with the UFC before fighting out his contract at UFC 202 in August. But it paid off, as he defeated top contender Neil Magny and ended his contract with a victory, giving him quite a bit of leverage in free agency.
Knowing that the Magny fight was arguably his most important fight to date gave Larkin extra motivation going into the bout.
“I knew there was a lot riding on that fight,” Larkin told BloodyElbow.com’s The MMA Circus. “It gave me a little bit more drive going into the fight. It felt like I had a lot to prove. So how that whole thing worked out was extra motivation [for] the whole camp.”
Larkin didn’t just defeat Magny; he steamrolled him. It was a dominant performance from start to finish, one of Larkin’s most impressive wins to date.
“It worked out to the best situation for me to be in,” he said. “Because it was either, one, I lose and then I kind of don’t have any leverage coming into my next contract, or I have to put it all on the line and I get the W and then I have some leverage. How I got the W, I felt like I got [even] more leverage.”
Larkin traveled outside of North America for the first time earlier this month. He was in attendance at UFC 204 in Manchester, England for Michael Bisping’s rematch against Dan Henderson.
He planned on talking with UFC president Dana White about negotiating a new contract while overseas but ended up not getting the chance to do so.
“How things worked out with Mike, he had to go to the hospital, so I wasn’t able to speak with [White] after the fight,” Larkin said. “So I’m just waiting on my manager to contact me so we can have it over the phone or something like that.”
Larkin has been a free agent for just over two months, and, for the most part, it has gone as expected thus far. One surprise for the 30-year-old, however, is that he hasn’t signed with an organization yet. He expected the process to be a lot quicker than it has proven itself to be.
Of course, other organizations can’t give him a formal offer until Nov. 20 — 90 days after his last fight. But the UFC seems to have shown little urgency to re-sign Larkin during the first two months of the welterweight’s free agency period.
“I feel like maybe I would’ve had something worked out by now, as far as on the UFC’s end,” he said. “But I guess this is just how it works. I guess this is one of those time-issue things, where the three months is the waiting period to finally see as far as negotiations. I didn’t really think about the whole 90-day thing, so I didn’t really know there was going to be a waiting period. I guess that’s the main thing about this whole thing — the waiting game.”
Larkin is willing to sign with a different organization if it makes sense business-wise. He’s looking for three things: money, marketing and exposure. Whichever organization makes him the best offer based off those three things, that’s where he’ll land, he said.
Larkin isn’t completely sure why the UFC hasn’t reached out to him yet, but hopes that it is just because the organization is going through a transition period right now with the recent sale and because it is busy with its upcoming debut in New York City.
“I hope that’s the reason that everything’s taking so long,” he said. “I hope they’re just not putting me on the back burner, just like, ‘Oh, you know what, we’ll let him just kick it for a minute.’”
Despite the lengthy stretch of uncertainty, Larkin doesn’t regret testing the free agency waters. Plus, he has some time off to strengthen his craft and learn about the entire free agency process, he said. The only bad thing, according to Larkin, is that on the sidelines, he’s not making money.
“I’m glad that I’m doing it right now,” he said. “The whole reason we didn’t come to terms with each other is because I felt like the offer was kind of a slap in my face. I didn’t appreciate the offer, I thought it was a slap in the face, and I felt that I was worth a lot more. So I’m more than happy with my decision.”
Ahead of his last fight, Larkin spoke out against the UFC for putting his fight against Magny on its subscription-based digital streaming service, UFC Fight Pass, calling their decision “stupid.” Larkin is “not sure” if his comments will affect the UFC’s level of interest in re-signing him but doesn’t care, either way.
“Anything I say is not biased,” he said. “These are all true statements. These are all true events. It’s not like me having just a fit and making up stuff. This is just true stuff. I’m just telling it how it is. I was never marketed, other than fight week. But every fighter gets marketed fight week. I just felt like they never took the opportunity to market me. And I’m quite capable of being marketed; I have the talent and I have the style to be marketed. And they never jumped the ball on that.”
His dissatisfaction with the UFC because he was on UFC Fight Pass didn’t last long, however. He ended up being very pleased with the amount of marketing he received leading up to his fight against Magny, which was labelled the “UFC Fight Pass featured bout.”
“You know what’s crazy? I received more marketing behind Fight Pass than I’ve ever had for a fight. And that’s the honest truth,” he said. “Going into it, I was complaining, because there are not that many eyes on Fight Pass compared to an FS1 fight or a pay-per-view fight. Those were my concerns. But I received a call from Eric Winter — I believe he’s the vice president of Fight Pass. He gave me a call and told me to give him a shot, give them a chance, and let them show me that me and Magny are going to be really marketed for the feature fight. And that’s what I did, and they came through. I felt like they marketed us pretty good for that fight, and I felt like there were a lot of eyes on that fight.”