Issue 064
July 2010
Whether a Tom Lawlor fight ends with a highlight submission or a controversial decision, his elaborate entrances mean the MMA world is guaranteed to remember the American middleweight.
Lawlor has proven his sharp sense of humor with his famous costumes at weigh-ins and during ring walks. From channeling Hulk Hogan and Dan Severn to painting ‘Just Bleed’ on his torso or walking to the Octagon to the sounds of ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’, Lawlor’s position as one of the UFC’s top entertainers is secure.
Do you consider yourself a fighter or an athlete?
At this point I think I consider myself as an entertainer rather than either a fighter or an athlete. I guess if I went down the scope of things it’d probably be: entertainer, fighter, athlete – just because I’m not very athletic. I don’t have very many fast-twitch muscle fibers in my body. You don’t have to be a good athlete to be a good fighter – I learned that in the sport of wrestling, which is kind of why I started gravitating towards that. In basketball you’ve got to have certain physical attributes. In football you’ve got to have certain physical attributes. Wrestling, you can be slow, white, dumb and just willing to work hard and get through it. So, entertainer, fighter, athlete.
Tell us what happened in your first fight. Did you break the cage?
I had a fight, an amateur fight, probably four years before the fight that you’re referring to. The fight that you’re referring to was against Ariel Gandulla. I didn’t break the cage, he actually broke the cage – it just so happened that he was backpedaling as I was coming forward with underhooks. So technically he broke the cage, I’ll say, because I don’t want somebody coming after me for insurance purposes or anything like that. But yeah the cage broke as we were in the clinch.
How bad?
Well, the cage door flew open. I’m not sure that anybody had latched it correctly and he fell out about four feet to the ground and hit himself. I think he sustained an arm injury or something along those lines. But then he was fighting for the WEC four months later so I’m not sure how badly he was really injured. But that was the end of the fight. It’s on YouTube.
You’re known for your crazy ring entrances and dressing up for the weigh-ins. Where do you get your inspiration from?
I don’t even know. To be honest it’s usually a big team effort. I have a lot of guys that are just as mentally unstable as myself. We all get together; we try to collaborate and come up with these things, and usually there’s about ten or 15 ideas floating around before the fight. Actually, the last two times it’s been game-day decisions, on the weigh-ins and the actual fight. My inspiration doesn’t come from any omnipotent being or source or anything else like that. Just the fact that I’ve somehow surrounded myself with guys that have, I guess, a similar personality and / or are missing some parts of their brain. Each time there’s a fight coming up now, I feel like I have to try to outdo the last one. And it’s getting harder and harder to go ahead and please some of the hardcore fans coming out for the weigh-ins and the entrance. Eventually I’m just going to have to call it quits and come out with no music, nothing – just walk stone-faced down to the ring.
Which do you prefer, putting someone to sleep with a good right hand or a tight choke?
I guess at this point I’d probably say, putting someone to sleep with a choke, just because there seem to be less submissions pulled off in MMA, especially in the UFC. That would give me a better shot at getting a ‘submission of the night’ bonus. I kind of need the money so I’ll go with choke because the odds are with me getting a bonus on that one.
Who gave you the ‘Filthy’ nickname?
The person who actually gave me that specific title was a guy named Jayson Patino. It’s 23 years in the making of not doing dishes, not doing my laundry, not showering properly, not paying attention to dental or personal hygiene. Originally it was Tom ‘The Filthy Mauler’ Lawlor, but then Ryan Bader kind of mauled me on The Ultimate Fighter 8, so I decided to drop the ‘Mauler’ part and just be ‘Filthy’. Regardless of if I knock somebody out, or get beat up, or whatever else, I’ll still be dirty.
