5 MMA fighters that scare the living daylights out of their opponents
Every sportsperson experiences fear and anxiety before stepping on the stage of sporting competition. Battling the anxiety and holding one’s nerves is a part of every sportsperson’s life. However, combat sports ups-the-ante in this regard.
In soccer, when you miss a shot at goal, your team misses a scoring opportunity; in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) when you miss a shot, you get punished for it with punches, kicks, elbows, knees, joint-locks, choke-holds and various other painful manoeuvres.
In other words, you can ‘play’ other sports, but you can’t ‘play’ combat sports. Saying that ‘Combat sports’ are different from most other sports would be an understatement. Now MMA, in particular, is considered to be one of the scariest, if not the scariest combat sport as of today.
MMA athletes are highly-skilled and brave, but they are after all human. MMA combatants experience fear just like you and me. Now it’s essential to understand that there are levels to the intensity of these emotions that fighters experience once the cage door slams shut.
A select few MMA fighters, although they may experience fear themselves, serve to generate insane amounts of emotional upheavals in the minds of their opponents. As the saying goes - The inside of an MMA cage is a lonely and scary place.
You may be surrounded by thousands of fans in the arena and millions watching all over the world, but when that bell rings it’s just you and your opponent. MMA is a sport that is high on emotions with fear being one of the most common amongst them.
After years of critical observations and technical analysis by MMA pundits and fans alike, a group of rare fighters have been arguably agreed upon as being the ‘Scariest fighters’ in our sport of MMA.
A few such fighters that scare the living hell out of the men they stand across the cage have made our list-
#5 Robbie Lawler
‘Ruthless’ Robbie Lawler (27-11-1) is a former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight (WW/170 pound) champion and a former EliteXC, ICON Sport and Superbrawl Middleweight (MW/185 pound) champion.
Lawler has an MMA base of wrestling and boxing. He also trained in karate as a child. Lawler is known for having insane one-punch KO power in both hands, great knees and for the utilisation of the old-school MMA style of sprawl-and-brawl.
He has decent Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) and developed into a more well-rounded MMA fighter after working with American Top Team (ATT) from 2012-2017. 20 of Lawler’s 27 wins have come by way of knockout.
His fights against Frank Trigg, Tiki Ghosn, Murilo Rua, Scott Smith, Melvin Manhoef, Matt Lindland, Adlan Amagov, Josh Koscheck, Bobby Voelker, Rory Macdonald (2X) and Jake Ellenberger are just a few examples of his toughness and super-human KO power.
After knocking down Macdonald en route to a split-decision victory at UFC 167 in 2013, Lawler faced Johny Hendricks at UFC 171 in March of 2014 for the UFC WW strap.
Lawler lost a close decision to Hendricks and then went on a path of ruthless destruction knocking out Ellenberger, dominating Matt Brown and then outworking Hendricks in their rematch at UFC 181 in December of the same year.
Also read: 5 Most Hated Fighters In MMA History
Lawler went on to have brutal 5-round wars with Rory Macdonald in July of 2015 and Carlos Condit in January of 2016, successfully defending his WW strap by knocking out Macdonald and brutalising Condit.
Lawler lost the title in his most recent fight by a flash-KO at the hands of his former training partner Tyron Woodley, and what’s interesting to note is that Woodley had stated in multiple interviews before and after their fight how hard ‘Ruthless’ hits from their time spent together in the sparring sessions at ATT.
Add to that Lawler’s penchant for smiling after eating his opponent’s best shots, and it doesn’t exactly instil a sense of confidence in his in-cage opponent. Each and every one of Lawler’s opponents as well as sparring partners have attested to the fact that standing toe-to-toe with Lawler is one of the toughest things in MMA.
Considering the fact that the aforementioned fighters themselves are extremely tough and highly-skilled in their own right, it comes as no surprise that ‘Ruthless’ is one of the last persons you want to see staring you down from across the cage.