Feeling like a beast again, Robbie Lawler doesn’t care for Ben Askren’s talk

2018 was a fantastic year of MMA action. Out of all the great fights and performances we saw, none of them happened to include the ‘Ruthless’ former UFC welterweight king, Robbie Lawler.

The reason for that being due to a torn ACL suffered in his last fight with Rafael Dos Anjos which took place in December 2017. Lawler would lose the bout via unanimous decision.

Having gone 1-1 since his time as the champion, one of MMA’s most violent and fan-friendly competitors is back. And he feels like his old self once again.

“I feel damn frickin’ good right now,” Lawler told MMAjunkie. “I don’t know when it clicked that, holy sh*t, I’m a beast again. But I am.

“But that was always the goal – just get back to work and everything will fall into place. I just believed in myself that it was going to happen at the right time. I can’t wait to show everybody how hard I’ve been working.”

A beastly Robbie Lawler is a scary thought for any man standing across from him, but the one who gets to tackle that monster head on next will be the undefeated 18-0 newcomer, former Bellator and ONE Championship champion, ‘Funky’ Ben Askren.

Despite having not made his debut yet, Askren has made plenty of waves in the division already with his voice alone as he’ll say anything that’s on his mind whenever he sees fit.

Lawler hasn’t found himself a target of Askren’s in the verbal department, and even if he did, he doesn’t think he would be affected by it.

“I don’t really care,” Lawler said. “I don’t spend much time on he said she said, what you think about why and how.

“Really, I’ve just been trying to grind and get better every day and spend time with my family. I don’t really dabble into why [UFC President] Dana [White] did this, why Askren said that. But I do see stuff that Askren says that I think is funny. Other than that, I don’t pay much attention to it.”

At UFC 235 on March 2, Lawler returns and Askren debuts on the most stacked card of 2019 so far.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/23/2019