More than a year away from fighting hasn't diminished Strikeforce light-heavyweight Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal's confidence in himself, even against the best pure grappler in the world.
"I don't fear jiu-jitsu," says Lawal, scheduled to fight grappling phenom Roger Gracie next week. "I don't fear nothing. ... I respect the jiu-jitsu. But as far as fearing it, no."
The last time Lawal entered a professional fight, he was the newly crowned champion of Strikeforce's 205-pound division. But his first title defense ended with a loss to Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante.
Lawal spent several months after that August 2010 encounter recovering from a knee injury that he had going into the fight with Cavalcante, as well as the bout earlier that year that saw him win the belt from Gegard Mousasi.
With a healed knee and months of training with American Kickboxing Stable in San Jose, Lawal returns next week to face Gracie at Strikeforce's Sept. 10 show in Cincinnati. USA TODAY spoke to Lawal on Wednesday about the upcoming fight. Excerpts from the conversation:
Q: You've been out for more than a year. How long did it take to recover from the injuries you had in the Feijao fight?
Lawal: I was back by January pretty much.
I didn't sustain no injuries from Feijao. I went into the fight with the injury. It was a good win on Feijao's behalf; the rematch won't be like that, though.
Why did you go into the fight with injuries?
I didn't know the extent of it until after. I just figured, "Hey, I'm good enough to win, regardless."
I was winning the fight up until I got caught with the knee, the left hook and then the elbows to the head.
It looked to me like you got a little bit tired as the fight went on. Is that a fair assessment?
I wasn't tired at all. If you saw the post-fight interviews, I wasn't breathing hard. Feijao was breathing hard. I was just chilling.
People tend to think I'm tired because I'm in a relaxed stance. But I wasn't tired.
Once you recovered from the injury, you trained at various places before coming to American Kickboxing Academy. What led you to set up camp at AKA?
I came up here before. Dan (Cormier) is my boy. He's out there.
(Head trainer) Bob Cook was real cool; I met him. Jav(ier Mendez) was cool. Cain (Velasquez). All those guys. Luke Rockhold, who I met out in Miami.
I just like I need more structure, and bigger and better partners.
Since you've been with AKA, what would you say has been the biggest evolution in your game?
Everything. Mentally. Physically. Everything's improved. You'll all see come Sept. 10.
I'm prepared for war wherever the fight goes.
If it goes to the ground, I'm cool with the ground. We did plenty of ground-and-pound drills for Roger Gracie. If it goes to standing, whatever, man; I'm cool standing. I don't care.
I'm a wrestler and he's a grappler. Wrestling vs. jiu-jitsu. I'm going to take him down. I'm going to pound him. I'm going to put my knuckles in his eye, in his nose and his mouth. Elbows where I can.
I promise you, it's not going to be pretty.
I heard you say earlier that you're not afraid of his jiu-jitsu. Why not worry about a guy who's grappling is as good as his?
He's the best jiu-jitsu guy in the world, but why should I be afraid of it? If I was really afraid of it, I would be like, "Nah, I'm not fighting him."
I fear nothing. I fear no man. I don't fear jiu-jitsu. I don't fear nothing. Nothing.
I respect the jiu-jitsu. But as far as fearing it, no.
I prepared for it and I respect it. I know that he has a few strong points in his jiu-jitsu background. ... Other than that, I don't fear nothing.
What do you see as the biggest threats he poses as a grappler?
He's good everywhere. He's probably the most fundamentally sound grappler in the world right now. Anybody with strong fundamentals, it's hard to beat them in grappling.
But the thing is, this ain't grappling. It's MMA. I can punch and I can throw elbows.
When you look at the guys he's beaten in MMA, what do you think they could have done differently?
I have no idea. Put it like this: He's fought them good, but these guys aren't me.
Trevor Prangley, it looked like he was just too relaxed, and just went out there and threw a left hook and got tripped.
Yuki Kondo had no chance. Ron Waterman back in 2005 had no chance. So really, I can't take much from these guys. He beat them in their strengths.
I think most people would say the best percentages for you would be on the feet because your striking is better than his. Would you agree with that?
I don't know. The thing is, he could have improved.
He trains with GSP (Georges St. Pierre). I've heard he (trained) with (St. Pierre's primary coach) Firas Zahabi and them. So who knows how much he could have improved stand-up wise? He's got a good jab. He's long. He could come out here and be good on his feet.
We don't know until the fight happens. I'm ready for any position, any situation.
I heard an interview where you said after Roger Gracie, you want to fight Dan Henderson. Given that he's a free agent who might end up in UFC, what's the likelihood of that happening?
If I fight for the belt, I want to fight Dan. There's no point in me fighting for a vacated belt. That means nothing. ... If I can't beat the person that had it before, I don't want it.
Do you think you'll end up in UFC eventually?
I don't know anything about anything that's going on with UFC and Strikeforce and Zuffa. I just worry about the fights, because if I spend time worrying about what's going to happen, I'd be a sick person.
How about a rematch with Feijao? Any interest in that.
That'd be cool too. I'd love to fight him again.
Would you approach anything differently, or was it just a matter of you not being as healthy as you should have been?
I wouldn't change anything. What would I change?
If you watch the fight, I couldn't fight as an orthodox fighter. All my damage was done as a southpaw.
I'm not a true southpaw. I fought (Gegard) Mousasi as a southpaw because of my injury. I switched it. If you look at my (previous) fights, I don't fight predominantly southpaw.
The way I fought Feijao, I did damage as a southpaw when I'm not really a southpaw. I was winning the fight.
Do you think coming out southpaw threw him off a bit?
No, because he trains with Anderson Silva. He trains with other southpaws.
Say I spar with James Toney for a whole camp or I've been training with him for years, and a guy who's a kickboxer comes out boxing with me. How could him not throwing kicks throw me off when I'm used to sparring with a boxer?
How comfortable are you with boxing these days?
I love boxing. I love grappling. I love wrestling. I love kickboxing. I love it all, man.
But boxing was my first love. I grew up watching boxing. I still watch it. I try to know as much of its history as I can.
Did you think about going into boxing before you wrestled?
Yeah, actually, I did. But wrestling is what I got me into college. It was bittersweet, because I love wrestling too.
But at the time when I was coming up in Dallas region, boxing wasn't a big thing. So I just decided to go with wrestling and take my chances with that.
A lot of guys go into MMA from wrestling at least partly because there's no money in wrestling. If you could make a living in wrestling, would you do that?
If I could make the money I made from MMA in wrestling, I'd probably still be wrestling, to be honest with you. (chuckles)
Is there anything wrestling can do about it, or is MMA destined to be the career of choice for people from amateur wrestling?
Only thing wrestling can do about that is to include punching and kicks and knees and submissions. That's it. (chuckles)
Sounds like MMA to me.
Yup.
Speaking of wrestling, your teammate Dan Cormier the other day suggested that wrestling gets too much criticism in mixed martial arts. How fair is the criticism of so-called "boring" wrestlers in MMA?
The criticism is stupid to me. Some of these guys wrestling when it's part of MMA, but they'll cheer for sloppy stand-up.
The grappling in MMA is not that bad. The wrestling in MMA ain't that bad either. But that stand-up is light years behind it.
If you're going to want to see stand-up, wouldn't you at least pay to see good stand-up? Go watch K-1 or go watch boxing? That's how I see it. If you want to see top-level stand-up, go pay to watch boxing. Go pay to watch kickboxing. Go watch that instead.
Why do you think people sometimes aren't able to appreciate what's happening on the mat?
Because they don't understand it. People want to see violence, and punches, kicks, knees seem more violent. ... They don't have the patience to see someone setting up a submission.
So it's just a matter of education then?
Yeah, pretty much.
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