Tom “The Filthy Mauler” Lawlor sat down with Heavy.com to discuss his upcoming fight at UFC 113 against Joe Doerksen. But Lawlor was not as interested in talking about the fight as he was his highly entertaining entrances, desire to compete as a professional wrestler, and his recent move to a cannibalistic diet.
Heavy MMA: You have made it clear that you are not interested in getting the Fight of the Night in your fight at UFC 113. Is getting the finish your ultimate goal?
Tom Lawlor: My goal is to go ahead and get the knockout finish, so I can go ahead and get three bonuses in a row. My cornerman and I were talking earlier about batting for the UFC cycle. If I can go ahead and get the Knockout of the Night here, that’ll effectively (give me) the triple threat, I guess.
Heavy MMA: You’re coming off a loss to Aaron Simpson in a fight where it’s up in the air if you actually lost it. Do you feel that, even though it was a loss, it was a great fight and the fans got what they came for?
Tom Lawlor: Part of me is upset over the fact that I lost. Part of me looks at the bigger picture and realizes that it was kind of a growing experience. You can always learn more from a loss than you can from a win. I’ll go ahead and make sure that’s the case with that last fight.
Heavy MMA: It seems somewhat of a lost art since the PRIDE days, being the exciting entrances before a fight. And you’re trying to bring that back, aren’t you?
Tom Lawlor: Yeah, I’m trying to bring it back. Not even since PRIDE, but since well before then, since WrestleMania. I’m trying to go ahead and bring a little bit of that action into the UFC.
Heavy MMA: Is it difficult for you to keep on trying to top your previous entrances? I mean, that’s a tall order.
Tom Lawlor: It is getting harder and harder. My IQ level is pretty low. My level of intelligence is not too high. So for me to keep coming up with ideas that top the last one, it’s getting more and more tiresome and more and more trying. But I’ve got a lot of people behind me that give me ideas. I consult on the internet. I consult people in real life. Crystal ball. I do it all to try to come up with ideas.
Heavy MMA: When do you feel you will reach that pinnacle? When do you feel you’re just going to be so good at it that there’s nowhere else to go but down from there?
Tom Lawlor: I may have already reached that point. Each time I try to add a little bit of flair to it, but the time is coming pretty soon where I’m gonna either have to do something so spectacular that no one will ask me to do another entrance again, or I’m gonna go ahead and try something so bad that people are embarrassed to say that they’re a fan of mine.
Heavy MMA: There aren’t many people in the sport that have such a fun personality before a fight. Where do you get this humor, this ability to entertain the fans even before the fight starts?
Tom Lawlor: I don’t know if I’m misinterpreted in a way. I’m serious about getting in there and fighting as soon as I get in the cage, but everything before then…it’s all part of the show. MMA at its heart is an entertainment, much like all other pro sports. If basketball was boring and people weren’t dunking and, you know, looked like the WNBA, no one would be watching it. But MMA, it’s entertaining. There’s a large entertainment aspect to it, and I’m just going ahead and trying to tap into that a little bit more. You know, I like to have a good time. I like to party, so that’s my biggest time to go ahead and party.
Heavy MMA: Did you get this inspiration from yourself and your personality? Or was there someone in the UFC or pro wrestling that inspired you?
Tom Lawlor: I’ve been a huge pro wrestling fan ever since I was a kid and the way I look at it now is that MMA is kind of the evolution of what pro wrestling was originally meant to be. It kinda went down one road and now it’s completely off the deep end, whereas MMA still has a lot of its purity as far as the sport goes. But it’s missing out on some entertainment aspects.
Heavy MMA: There are guys like Jason “Mayhem” Miller and “King Mo” Lawal in Strikeforce who both like to put on a good performance with their entrances. Maybe you guys should just have an entrance challenge.
Tom Lawlor: That might be the only aspect that I could beat those guys in. “Mayhem” dances a lot when he comes out, and King Mo kind of does the same entrance almost every single time when he comes out. I actually think I would be able to throw a wrinkle in there, throw something new and exciting at them that they wouldn’t be expecting, and I think I could actually pull out that win. Like in entrances, not in a fight.
Heavy MMA: You mentioned pro wrestling earlier. When you were growing up was your dream to be a wrestler, but changed as mixed martial arts started growing in popularity?
Tom Lawlor: No, not really. I still would rather be doing pro wrestling.
Heavy MMA: Oh really? What’s your dream matchup?
Tom Lawlor: My dream matchup? Does it include me?
Heavy MMA: Yes, of course.
Tom Lawlor: Oh man. Well, if I could pick my dream matchup, it’d be a 30-man royal rumble. I could pick 29 other guys. Like, I could run off a laundry list right now if you want 29 guys.
Heavy MMA: Well, let’s just make it two or three guys.
Tom Lawlor: Oh, two or three. Iron Sheik. He’s an old school favorite. The Yeti from WCW. He made one appearance. And I’ll say Balls Mahoney.
Heavy MMA: How do you see that fight playing out? Are you giving yourself a chance?
Tom Lawlor: Actually that’s why I picked all of them. Iron Sheik would be the only competition. But I’m choosing Iron Sheik that’s around now, not Iron Sheik in his prime when he medaled at the Olympics as an amateur wrestler. I’m picking Iron Sheik right now who’s probably stoned out of his mind on pot and his belly button protrudes three feet off his stomach.
Heavy MMA: I hate to move to a serious note, but your fight with Joe Doerksen, he’s obviously looking for some redemption in the UFC. Where do you feel you hold the greatest advantage in this fight? Is there a specific aspect, or are you just going to go in there and do what you’ve been doing?
Tom Lawlor: I don’t really try to game plan to tell you the truth. I’ve watched one of his fights. I actually forgot to bring the DVD with me of his other fights, so hopefully my cornermen who haven’t gotten here yet can go ahead and pick it up for me. But I don’t try to go ahead and gameplan necessarily for the other person. I just try to keep improving myself as a fighter.
Heavy MMA: How is your preparation for this fight going? Of course there are guys like Alistair Overeem who eat horse meat eight times a day. What do you do?
Tom Lawlor: I’ve actually been eating a person who’s been eating horse meat. I’ve taken it one step further. Alistair Overeem’s been going at it eating horse meat and putting on muscle. So I figured if I add in not only the horse meat, but then you add in the muscle from the human tissue and the human that’s eaten the horse meat, then it’ll be magnified. So I’ve actually reverted back to cannibalism of a person who’s been eating horse meat.
Heavy MMA: So your training turned into a “Silence of the Lambs” camp? Is that what you would call it?
Tom Lawlor: Yeah, yeah. I sit around a lot listening to “Goodbye Horses” from “Silence of the Lambs” and dancing while I eat human flesh.
Heavy MMA: On the note of “Silence of the Lamb” and “Goodbye Horses”, have you ever considered using that as a possible entrance in the future?
Tom Lawlor: Actually, I haven’t thought about doing that, but there have been some fighters in Florida that I train with that have expressed coming out to that exact scenario. So I’m not gonna steal it from them. I try to be somewhat original, so I’ll go ahead and let somebody else do that.
Heavy MMA: Right. Well to wrap things up, could you tell your fans what they can expect for your upcoming fight at UFC 113?
Tom Lawlor: I don’t know what to expect as far as the fight goes, but I know afterwards the fans can expect a lot of heavy drinking.
Heavy MMA: Well, thanks for taking the time out to talk to me and I hope your entrance turns out great. And the fight, of course.
Tom Lawlor: I hope so, too. I might get lynched.
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