"The Ultimate Fighter 8" cast member Tom Lawlor plans drop to middleweight
"The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir" cast member Tom Lawlor (5-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC), who defeated Ryan Lopez in a preliminary bout before losing to eventual show winner Ryan Bader in the show's quarterfinals, is planning to drop a weight class and compete in the UFC's middleweight division.
Lawlor scored a unanimous-decision victory over Kyle Kingsbury on the undercard of the show's Dec. 13 live finale.
With the victory, Lawlor has been assured at least one additional fight in the UFC. A loss likely would have meant the end of his UFC career.
"This is now my livelihood," Lawlor told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "If I didn't win that fight, I don't know what I would have done. I really tried not to give it too much thought because I didn't want to be like, 'Well, I have a backup plan,' because all I really want to do is fight.
"I knew that if I didn't get the W or put on a Fight of the Night performance I probably wouldn't be coming back."
Instead, Lawlor, who said he's "pretty sure" his left hand was broken during the Kingbury fight, earned the unanimous-decision victory. He now plans to return in March 2009 and drop from 205 to 185 pounds.
"I'm not walking out of [my UFC fights] with Chuck Liddell money at this point ... so it's really hard for me to eat as many calories as I need to," Lawlor joked. "Plus, I really, really like to booze on the weekends, so a lot of money goes to that. I really don't have a lot of money for food, so I've been losing weight at a rapid rate ever since I quit my job about a year ago. It's been kind of tough for me to keep the weight on."
Lawlor said his walking-around weight is about 205 pounds, and he said the size difference was quite obvious between him and a true light heavyweight such as Kingsbury. He said the drop in weight class was the "obvious" decision to make.
Lawlor, who enjoyed a brief career as a professional wrestler in Florida, was a stand-out high-school athlete and all-state heavyweight wrestler. He also went on to become a three-time National Collegiate Wrestling Association All-American at the University of Central Florida. He made his pro MMA debut in March 2007, and before joining the cast of "TUF," went 4-1 to start his career. His only loss came via disqualification (illegal knee) to fellow cast member Shane Primm earlier this year at a World Fighting Championships event.
Lawlor, a former member of American Top Team Orlando, now owns his own gym, The Jungle MMA, with Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Mike Lee. The facility is also home to UFC veteran Seth Petruzelli.
For now, Lawlor said he is just happy knowing he's earned himself some additional time in the UFC, an organization he's followed as "a big-time fan" since UFC 4 in 1994.
While nursing the hand injury, he continues working with Petruzelli and strength coach Jim Smith from dieselcrew.com. As with the Kingsbury fight, the Florida-based Lawlor also plans to return to his stomping grounds in Massachusetts, where he trains at Lauzon MMA and Team Aggression with fellow UFC fighter Joe Lauzon, Dan Lauzon and others.
"You could say I'm also very closely affiliated with them," Lawlor said. "I have a really good relationship with them."
