Not a troll thread, not a fighter bashing thread. Seriously. This is about the recent hype of Robbie Lawler, which has gotten completely out of control. People are saying he'd beat Rory, he'd beat GSP, he'd beat the top 5, and so on. This isn't criticism of Robbie Lawler (who I wish the best of luck to), but rather a reminder to sherdoggers who think two KO's in a row = worldbeater.
First of all, he does have a nice win over Koscheck, and another nice win over Voelker. But that's it. The Kosckeck win was great for his standing and put him in the top 10 in official rankings, but the win over Voelker means almost nothing. Voelker is not a top 15 guy and has never been. He lost to Patrick Cote in his previous fight, which should say it all. It's a flashy win but it means nothing in terms of rankings.
With that out of the way, let's looking at Robbie Lawler as a fighter. He's young, 31 years old, and is looking good. But his record shows a different story. He went 3-5 in Strikeforce and is 5-5 in his last ten fights. He's lost guys like Lorenz Larkin, Babalu and Tim Kennedy in that streak. These are not top 10 fighters. And that's just his recent fights - if you go back farther you can see that Lawler has always been a 50/50 fighter. One fight he wins, one fight he loses. He's a good fighter, but he's not a consistent fighter. To those introduced to him by his recent UFC results he looks like a superstar, but to those who have been around a bit we know that he gets a nice win or two then crashes back down to Earth in his next fight.
Now to those saying his losses are at MW and his last 2 wins show that he's a beast at WW, remember that he went to MW for a reason. He lost to Evan Tanner, Pete Spratt and was KO'd (!) by Nick Diaz with one punch. It was awhile ago, but he didn't go to MW because he felt it was his natural weight class, he went there because he was chased there. And now he's back to WW and people are thinking that this is his weightclass, this is where he's always belonged, and they don't know why he wasn't always a WW.
When Robbie fights some of higher ranked UFC fighters you are going to see why he's not taken as seriously as some of you may want as a top contender. He's got an impressive skillset which he uses with a lot of aggression and power to finish fights, but against more complete, skilled fighters his gameplan doesn't usually play out the way he wants to. When he wins, he tends to win spectacularly (he does not decision win people), but he also loses about half his fights. His gameplan is too straight forward to work against the top UFC guys, and especially against someone like Rory Mac, who people are thinking is going to lose to Lawler if Dana gets the fight put together like he wants. Rory in particular is too big, too rangy, and too good at keeping distance to lose to Lawler. He just left MW and he's going to beat a massive WW? Smart money is that Rory Mac is a huge favorite in that fight. Same for most other top fights.
That said, Lawler is always entertaining and great to watch. When he wins, he wins in exciting fashion. Just don't forget that he's been here awhile and never really been a contender. Smart money is he ends up ranked 12-15 and sits around there.
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