Robbie Lawler - Rebirth to Retirement

Twenty years after it began, Robbie Lawler’s fighting career is scheduled to conclude this weekend on the undercard of UFC 290, before most ticket holders have even taken their seats.

Lawler grew up in the UFC. He was sixteen when UFC welterweight champion, Pat Miletich welcomed him into the fearsome stable of fighters at Miletich Fighting Systems and Lawler arrived in the UFC a couple of months after what would turn out to be Miletich’s last fight.

While the tales around Miletich Fighting Systems depict a gym full of hard bastards doing hard sparring, Pat Miletich’s style rarely reflected that. He was a thoughtful technician in an age where there were not many of those around. When Robbie Lawler arrived in the UFC though, he was anything but thoughtful. Fighting out of a hunched crouch, the southpaw Lawler leapt into lead right hooks with all his might. Figure 1 shows Lawler leaping into a right hook against Lorenz Larkin, who beats him to the punch with a jab, and still gets rocked as the right hook collides with the back of his head.

The weirdness of a leaping, southpaw right hook made Lawler an almost unique threat in his early days, but his first run with the UFC showed that it was not going to be enough.

Most fans know about Lawler’s first fight with Nick Diaz. Lawler was the banger and Diaz was the Jiu Jitsu black belt, and yet it was Diaz with his softer, shorter punches who knocked Lawler out. What most modern fans are not aware of is that all three of Lawler’s losses in his first UFC run saw him being outstruck. Pete Spratt chewed up Lawler’s legs with kicks which saw him verbally submit out in the open cage in round two. And even Evan Tanner, a self-taught grappler who submitted Lawler in his last UFC fight, was outstriking Lawler with long left straights.  

After the Tanner loss, Lawler parted ways with the UFC but in 2004 it was not the same monopsony power that it is today, and Lawler was able to make a decent living on smaller shows. A twenty-five-year-old UFC veteran with dynamite in his hands was always a welcome attraction in regional promotions like Superbrawl, King of the Cage and ICON Sport. Lawler found his way to the industry leader, PRIDE FC when the Japanese promotion came to Las Vegas in October 2006. Unfortunately, PRIDE would die six months later when the UFC bought it and closed up shop. Lawler made an impression though: in spite of just one fight with the promotion, his twenty-two second flying knee knockout of Joey Villasenor very nearly stole the show.

Fighting as a middleweight, Lawler found his way to the short lived EliteXC and then onto Strikeforce, where he would become a mainstay. He suffered a first round guillotine choke at the hands of Jake Shields and challenged Jacare Souza for the Strikeforce middleweight title, succumbing to a rear naked choke in the third round. And despite looking undersized at 185 pounds, he fought as high as 195 pounds against Renato Sobral. In his last Strikeforce fight, Lawler connected a single good right hook to stun Lorenz Larkin in the first round, then comprehensively lost the rest of the fight in the clinch, out in the open, and on the mat. When Strikeforce met the same fate as PRIDE FC, Lawler’s record with the company stood at 3-5.

Brought back into the UFC along with many other Strikeforce athletes, Robbie Lawler returned to action seven months after his last Strikeforce fight. In doing so he returned to the welterweight division for the first time in nine years. Lawler was always a fan favourite but no one had any reason to suspect that he would rattle off one of the great streaks in MMA history, going 8-1 over the next three years and winning the UFC welterweight title in the process.

 The Ruthless Rebirth

After several changes of camp, Lawler came to settle at American Top Team and had his greatest success there. ATT had been a powerhouse in MMA for a decade already but Lawler went on to become the team’s first UFC champion. This interesting fact is trotted out on UFC broadcasts but it is worth noting that coach Mike Brown was the best featherweight in the world and WEC champion just before the UFC absorbed that company and opened a featherweight division.

In examining the changes that Lawler made to find the highest levels of success in his second UFC run, there are technical and tactical considerations but we cannot miss the forest for the trees. Lawler lost to grappling against a number of specialists in his Strikeforce run, but his problem wasn’t as simple as having “bad grappling.” He got up from underneath Jacare or at least evaded submissions for ten good minutes before finally getting caught in the third round. He forced Tim Kennedy to shoot and re-shoot and re-shoot again to get his takedowns. Jake Shields could barely get a hold of him and caught him with a surprising jumped guillotine off a snap down with Shields’ back to the fence. When Lawler was put underneath an opponent—whether they were bigger or had a better grappling pedigree and accomplishments—he usually got up. It was just that he couldn’t keep doing it for three to five rounds. Returning to welterweight for Lawler meant hauling his arse up from underneath significantly smaller men than Jacare Souza. With the happy bonus that most of them weren’t all time Jiu Jitsu greats.  

Through his title campaign, Lawler used a fascinating combination between his own open mat scrambling skills and the cage wrestling that all long term American Top Team charges come to master. His fight with Josh Koscheck is a great example: when Lawler gets put to his back, inserts a butterfly hook and uses that to lift Koscheck onto a scoop grip and wrestle up, that’s vintage Robbie Lawler. Figure 2 - 1 shows a beautiful bit of scrambling Lawler executed the first time he hit the mat.

Fig. 2 - 1

Lawler opens his guard and shrimps onto his right hip (a), allowing him to insert his left butterfly hook (b). He uses this hook to elevate Koscheck’s hips (c).

Figure 2-2 picks up the action. As Koscheck’s hips rise up to Lawler’s shoulder line, he scoop grips behind Koscheck’s right knee with his left hand (d). Now inserting his right butterfly hook (e), Lawler bridges off the floor with his left foot and throws Koscheck overhead, into the fence (f).

Fig. 2 - 2

Figure 2 - 3 concludes the sequence as Koscheck rebounds from the fence (g), and Lawler uses the right butterfly hook to redirect Koscheck to the other side (h). As Koscheck’s hands go to the floor, Lawler sits up to his hand (i), allowing him to stand up into a clinch (j).

But Koscheck immediately got in on his hips again. And another time after that. And it was the consistent, safe wall walking and pummelling Koscheck out of position that allowed Lawler to keep getting up. Midway through the first round, Lawler snuck in a good knee and Koscheck dived poorly at his legs. Lawler pulled him down with a front headlock and then executed the single hardest punch from standing over a turtled opponent that I have ever seen in mixed martial arts, knocking Koscheck out.

Another example of some classic Lawler scrambling is his get up in open space against Jake Ellenberger. Figure 3 - 1 shows Lawler shrimping his hips out onto his right side (b) in order to put a foot on Jake Ellenberger (c).

Fig. 3 - 1

Attempting to kick away, Lawler meets resistance and rolls over his right shoulder (d) up to his knees and into a single leg defence (e). Lawler continues to build up and ends up in an over-under clinch (f). This is not only a technique that I have never seen replicated, it also makes the man executing it look incredibly cool.

Fig. 3 - 2

Yet it was the ATT wall walk that carried Lawler through two fights against the brilliant wrestling of Johnny Hendricks. Using the fence to build up to his knees, then his feet, and going between standing wide to prevent the double leg and jousting for knee position in the upper body clinch. It was not eye-catching in the same way his thunderous hitting was, but it was a vital facet of Lawler’s game that was not nearly so refined in his Strikeforce run.

And this was true of his wall work on offence as well. When Lawler fought Larkin, he pushed Larkin to the fence repeatedly and yet it was Lawler who got beaten up from a position of perceived control.

A few fights later, Lawler was using the clinch against the fence to batter the bodies of Bobby Voelker and Jake Ellenberger. In fact, in the second Hendricks fight Lawler decided that bodywork was going to make the difference. Lawler had always thrown the odd knee from the clinch with all his might, but his newly honed fence wrestling allowed him to pursue Hendricks from the get go and hammer in knees from the clinch without worrying about the takedown. The clinch heavy fight with Larkin kept Lawler to just twenty total strikes landed in fifteen minutes of action. The clinch heavy second fight with Hendricks saw Lawler land almost fifty strikes to the body alone. Figure 4 shows a beautiful bit of offensive clinch striking against Voelker.

Lawler is using a single underhook with his right arm to pin Voelker to the fence, his left hand has an inside tie over Voelker’s biceps (a). Lawler lifts his left knee straight up to strike Voelker’s exposed midsection (b), this is the simple shot he landed repeatedly against Johnny Hendricks.

As Lawler comes down from the knee, he reaches for a collar tie with his left hand, keeping his left elbow and forearm inside of Voelker’s right (c). Dropping his elbow down he takes the biceps tie again and drives Voelker’s right arm out, posting his head against the right side of Voelker’s jaw (d).

Lawler grinds with his head position for a few seconds and Voelker, focusing on keeping good knee position, allows his head to drift out (e) into the line of a powerful right knee which splits his head open (f).

Relearning Striking

While Lawler was known as a “striker” he got pieced up against most of the decent strikers he met prior to his second UFC run. We have already mentioned the loaded up leaping right hook and how it surprised fighters, until it didn’t. The other Lawler standards were the left high kick and the left knee, both often thrown with a jump. Like Lawler’s right hook, these could not be used without a telegraph. Every Lawler left kick was preceded by a very obvious run up.

That is not to say it didn’t work: he stunned Jacare and knocked out Adlan Amagov with run up left kicks. But obviously sprinting into techniques means sacrificing control. Lawler would break away from Jacare, then leap back in with a right hook or left kick, which threw him into the clinch with Jacare and did all of the grappler’s work for him.

Maturity was difference between a decent, exciting journeyman and a world champion. It took Lawler recognizing that even if he was a world class belter, his attempts to throw one fight-ending shot at a time turned each bout into a lottery. From the fight with Voelker onwards it was clear that Lawler was focusing on throwing strikes that could lead into further offence, staying in position to strike and defend, and on throwing more strikes altogether. He also demonstrated a willingness to change his gameplan from opponent to opponent. Against Hendricks it was body striking—including some lead leg triangle kicks which Lawler never showed again. Against Matt Brown it was counter punching hard at the earliest opportunity. Brown’s inscrutable pressure fighting would have asked interesting questions of Lawler but Lawler scared him into a kickboxing match at range where the pressure never built at all.

Like Anderson Silva before him, Robbie Lawler’s physical prime and actual prime were two different animals. Both Lawler and Silva started young, had their time as a prospect, and fell into a gatekeeper or journeyman role. Silva arrived in the UFC and Lawler returned to the UFC late, but their best years were still ahead as both continued to improve as technicians. In fact the fight that best demonstrates Lawler’s growth as a striker is only one or two fights removed from the beginning of his obvious decline. Against Rory MacDonald, himself in the best form of his life, Lawler struck transcendently.

Thirty-six fights into his career, Lawler’s feet were suddenly underneath him. There was no leaping in or sprinting to get to MacDonald. Instead, Lawler slid over to him the with a rapier jab. The jab was not brand new to Lawler, from the Voelker fight onwards he was using the jab to build volume and begin combinations. But against MacDonald, that jab looked its slickest. Figure 5 shows a trick that Lawler used repeatedly to swell MacDonald’s left eye.

Lawler withdraws his lead foot in a rhythm step (a) and steps out to the right (b). Lawler begins to pivot his left foot in behind his right (c) and MacDonald begins to pivot with him to his new position. The moment that Lawler’s left foot comes into line behind his right (d), he jabs in (e). In the course of this movement he achieves outside foot position (f) and this lines up his left straight on MacDonald’s centreline. He soon began adding on the left straight and used it to break MacDonald’s nose.

Fig. 5

This side-step, pivot and jab plays beautifully into the open stance battle for lead foot position. In Figure 6, Lawler retracts his lead leg and side steps to his right (b), and MacDonald steps wide to try and keep outside position (c). The effect is that he only presents more of himself to the jab by straddling Lawler’s lead leg (d).

Fig. 6

Striking is an art built around deception and Lawler—for all his power and athleticism—was honest to a fault through most of his career. As he grew into his final run, feints and mix ups became more of a feature in his game. Figure 7 shows Lawler jabbing in to flick MacDonald on the snoot (a) but landing on a braced lead leg, ready to fade back in anticipation of a return (b). If a counter had come, Lawler would have pulled and fired back in its wake, but MacDonald sat on his hands and Lawler was free to come back in just the same with the left straight (c).

Fig. 7

This leading to get on the counter is what separates the educated striker from the scrapper trying his best. The right hook took on a more sensible role, as shown in Figure 8. Serving as a counter as MacDonald bit on a false entry from Lawler (b) and came charging in to capitalize on the perceived opening (c), (d).

The sport of mixed martial arts has more ugly duckling stories than almost any other because of the complexity of the game being played. Athleticism will carry you to a point, but when it stops the downfall can be brutal. The greatest stories in this business are the Anderson Silvas, the Charles Oliveiras, the Dustin Poiriers and the Robbie Lawlers. The fighters who had potential, hit a wall, and had the humility to break apart what they knew and rebuild themselves.

That is not to say that all Lawler had before his renaissance didn’t matter. The idea of “Fifth Round Lawler” exists because at some points, better technique wasn’t enough. Even after three excellent rounds against Rory MacDonald wherein he showed his slickest technique yet, Lawler needed to bite down on his mouthpiece and give it some classic Ruthless Robbie brute force in the final phase to secure the stoppage. Against Carlos Condit the cracks were starting to show and his final decline was looming, but Fifth Round Lawler came through to steal it on the cards.

The last few fights have not been strong. Watching Lawler simply freeze up against Rafael dos Anjos, and lose to the fun but ultimately unremarkable Bryan Barbarena was tough. But that’s fighting and, by the sounds of it, Lawler knows he doesn’t have it any more. In forty six fights there were just one or two that were not terrific fun to watch, Lawler was always as close to a guaranteed action fighter as you could get.

More than an action fighter though, Lawler represents that old gentlemanly ideal of the prize fighter. The crouch, the scowl and the leaping hooks conjure the memory of Jack Dempsey, but perhaps the most admirable thing the two fighters share is their class. A century apart, both men still swung with the meanest of intentions from somewhere primal, the kind of punch they say comes at birth and cannot be learned or taught. But both Dempsey and Lawler, win or lose, would hurry across to shake their opponents hand before any celebrating or commiserating was to be done. And to do that with sincerity? You would have an easier time teaching a fighter that legendary punch.

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If you are still in the mood for UFC 290 hype, consider reading my study on the enormously talented but infuriatingly wild Alexandre Pantoja (for the Patreon bois), or Advanced Striking 2.0 - Alexander Volkanovski, which is open to everyone. The Jack Slack Boicast previewing UFC 290 will drop tomorrow for the Patreon bois, or if you fancy something altogether different check out Regian Eersel - ONE’s Striking Superman.