Retired Coach Talks About Building Robbie Lawler Into A Champion

“When I first got him, he was wild. He wanted to go out there and go balls to the wall until something broke. And it worked for a while and was exciting as hell for a lot of those first fights. In terms of his natural ability, it was off the charts. Guys were afraid of him. These were world-class fighters at the time and he was just a kid. I had a lot of confidence that I could teach him how to manage an entire fight, but he had an ability to fight already. We covered some techniques, we covered angles, taught him rhythms and taught him how to break people down instead of going straight at them. And you saw great results in that.”

UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler wasn’t always the fighter he is today, according to his, now retired, striking coach Matt Pena.

Pena told UFC.com that when he first started working with ‘Ruthless’ he was more of a wild fighter and less of a refined champion level fighter.

Do you think Lawler will be holding onto the belt for a while?

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