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UFC’s Robbie Lawler Says He ‘Just Felt It Was Time’ To Retire After 22 Year Career 

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Robbie Lawler will be competing for the final time on Saturday night at UFC 290, marking his 47th match over a long and successful 22 year career. 

Lawler is a former UFC welterweight champion and a soon-to-be UFC Hall of Famer. He announced his plans to retire from MMA following his upcoming match with Niko Price. Lawler admitted that there wasn’t a specific moment that led him to the announcement, he just felt it was time for him to hang up the gloves. 

“It’s just a feeling I got over time. I’ve been doing this a long time, accomplished a lot, just felt it was time.”

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Lawler has been involved in MMA since he was a teenager, and since his professional debut in 2001, he’s competed every year, except for 2018, which is an amazing accomplishment for professionals in UFC. 

Lawler says the unknown is always scary, especially when leaving something he’s been involved in for two decades. 

“I would say there was fear, because it’s freaking unknown. I’ve been training and competing my whole life, even when I was supposed to be in high school or middle school. I’m concentrating on how to get better at wrestling or football or whatever, fighting, when I should be doing my homework. That’s where I’ve always been.”

“One thing that I feel I’m going to get out of this is I’m going to actually just be able to train for fun again, which is huge,” Lawler explained. 

“My body feels better when I’m training for fun. When I’m training for a fight, it just doesn’t feel as good as it used to and I don’t have to recover now,” he stated. 

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“I can actually torture myself, which seems weird, but that’s my goal: To torture myself, to beat myself down, and that’s how I gain strength. Now, since I’m older, I can’t recover as fast. So now I’m going to be able to torture myself a little bit more and give myself more rest.”

Lawler is also fully intending on remaining involved in the realm of MMA in the future, he just will be doing the work outside of the cage. 

“I’m definitely going to be around the sport. This sport has given so much to me. The reason that I am where I am today and been able to last this long is because of all the people helping me,” Lawler said. 

“So I’m going to give back, all these little tidbits I’ve learned over time and we have a really good gym at Kill Cliff FC, and just being able to help guys get stronger so that they can make money and compete at a higher level, and that’s what I feel martial arts is about. Giving back and showing techniques.”

“I think it could [get emotional], and it has come up, but I try not to because it’s a lot. I’ve been freaking doing this a long time,” Lawler concluded.

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UFC President Dana White Discusses Sports Bubbles And ‘Fight Island Project’

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President of UFC, Dana White, is ready to bring fighting back to our television screens. He’s been working with individuals in the industry, authority figures, and healthcare professionals from around the world to try and figure out the most realistic way to bring back UFC. 

His plan is referred to as the “Fight Island Project,” as he went all the way to Abu Dhabi to learn how to properly bring UFC back in the safest way possible. Abu Dhabi is located on an island in the Persian Gulf. The Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT) for Abu Dhabi has already been working with local athletes on fights on the island throughout the pandemic, hence White’s desire to go to the island and see it for himself. 

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To satisfy public health and safety guidelines, the DCT sealed off the entire island at the beginning of the pandemic. The island itself is about 10-square-miles, which includes a sports arena, hotel, training facilities, and multiple dining establishments for approximately 2,500 athletes, coaches, staff, and even personnel, according to White. 

“It was a success in every way you can measure success. Zero positive cases on the island, 12,500 tests, 100 athletes, four title fights, they’re [Abu Dhabi] light years ahead of everybody else in what’s going on with Covid so it really was the perfect partnership.”

White has received a lot of criticism from the media for attempting to bring a contact sport back into fruition during a global health crisis, however, he claims that if Americans are able to bring back basketball and baseball in a new context, why can’t he if he’s doing the proper research and working with countries that have actually gotten the pandemic under control at this point?

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Before the “Fight Island” plan, arenas in Jacksonville, Florida and Las Vegas were hosting UFC events before everything was shut down due to Covid-19. Now, White wants to implement everything he took from his collaboration with the DCT of Abu Dhabi and bring it back to America. Fight Night is already scheduled to take place at the Apex in Vegas this August, along with nine other fights. 

While White is confident in his team’s ability to maintain a healthy and safe working environment for all, he also is aware of the seriousness of this pandemic. 

“It’s something that I worry about every day. Everything that we’ve done has been successful; it’s been safe. I think that we’ve now proven ourselves that we can do this and we can pull this off, because I’m not afraid to spend the money. It’s expensive to do this thing right.”

MLS and the NBA are among the major sporting leagues in America to adopt the “bubble” procedure for bringing sports entertainment back. The NBA is set to make their return at the end of this week and the MLS has been playing the “MLS is Back Tournament” for the past few weeks, and baseball has also made its comeback. 

White is adamant in his belief that bringing back UFC won’t actually work “outside of a bubble.” Having individuals in lockdown without the ability to go home or sneak out is the only way to guarantee that everyone is healthy and will remain as such. Time will tell in the coming month how successful White and the UFC team is at implementing these new strategies.

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UFC Fighters Eager To Return To Normalcy This Weekend With ‘UFC 249’

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UFC is holding one of the first major sporting events during the coronavirus pandemic this Saturday night in Florida, where Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje will go head to head in the octagon. The pay-per-view show is meant to show the world that sports and entertainment in general is still thriving, and will return to normal eventually. 

Ferguson recently stated in an interview that both him and Gaethje want to “go out there and keep sports alive.” Both fighters flew into Jacksonville this week and were immediately tested for Covid-19 when they landed, along with every other member of each fighter’s team and the members of production for the event.

In separate interviews, the 24 fighters participating at UFC 249 all expressed that they were aware of the risks that come with competing in a sporting event that requires close-contact amongst the participants involved, however, UFC is taking all the necessary precautions that they need to to ensure everyone stays safe; there’s always going to be risk though. 

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Ferguson and Gaethje both believe that the sporting rewards outweigh the risks in this case. By fighting this Saturday, they’re setting an example for other sporting industries and proving that the parts of the “game” that fans know and love can continue to live on, just in a modified fan-free arena setting. 

WWE has also been continuing on with their regularly scheduled weekly programming in front of crowdless arenas. Just recently they held their annual Wrestlemania event – which is the equivalent to the SuperBowl for WWE fans – for the first time in front of an empty arena, and did so rather successfully.

“We’re going to bring a sense of normalcy to people. I’m proud to be a part of it. It’s the opportunity to inspire. People need to be inspired right now. They need to not let themselves become depressed (or) emotional because they can’t control what’s going on right now. We’ve got to ride it through. They need to be inspired, and we can do that,” Gaethje said in a phone interview. 

Ferguson added in the same interview: “I honestly had no reservations. Fighting is very dangerous, so I think we’ll be just fine.”

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The two are competing for the interim UFC lightweight title this Saturday. President of UFC, Dana White, recently said that she and her team never wanted to stop competition when this pandemic grew. They saw how industries like WWE were managing to stay relevant and alive during this uncertain time and wanted to do everything in her power to do the same for UFC. Luckily for White, all of the UFC fighters she contacted were bored and ready to get back to work the second they could do so safely. 

“There’s not very often you’re going to get to fight for a world title, much less during a pandemic when there’s zero sports going on, and you’re going to be the only one on TV. You have to face your fears. You’ve got to go out there and take the chances when they’re presented. … We get to put paychecks in our own pocket, and we get to put a paycheck in every UFC employee’s pocket that’s going to work this event and we get to inspire people to not give up right now,” Gaethje said. 

UFC 249 will be taking place this Saturday on pay-per-view and will be followed by additional UFC shows taking place on May 13th, May 16th and possible May 23rd as well, depending on how the next few weeks go.