| Joe Lauzon – There’s No Place Like Home |
Hilo, Hawaii. Not exactly the first place that comes to mind when you think of grueling training for mixed martial arts fights, or at least not the one that fits the stereotype of the gritty and grimy urban landscape which houses gyms that produce mean and nasty prizefighters.
It was a helluva fit for lightweight contender Joe Lauzon though, as he took advantage of 155-pound champion BJ Penn’s offer to train with him in the 50th state for much of the time following their stint together as coach and student on the fifth season of The Ultimate Fighter. And as far as Lauzon’s fellow Brocktonite Marvin Hagler and his proclamation that you can’t get up to train in the morning when you’re sleeping in silk pajamas goes, hogwash, says ‘J-Lau’.
“It’s not so hard to get up and train when it’s 85 and beautiful out,” said Lauzon. “It’s a little tougher when you’re back in Boston and there’s a foot and a half of snow outside. So I think it actually made it a little bit easier to get up being in Hilo.”
And Lauzon got good training with Penn, Rudy Valentino, and the rest of the Hilo gang, but after his April loss to Kenny Florian, Lauzon decided that it was time for a change of scenery, a change that brought him back home to Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
“I slept in my own bed one or two nights between January and April, and it felt so unsettled,” said Lauzon. “I was constantly bouncing around, and I had a good time out there, but I’d like to take some of the things I learned out there and try to run some camps here and see how this goes.”
“Here” is the school formerly named Reality Self-Defense, but which now goes under the moniker Lauzon Mixed Martial Arts. And while the name is new, what goes on behind the doors of the gym hasn’t changed a bit, and that’s a good thing for Lauzon, because this is where he learned his craft and developed his fight game under owner and head instructor Joe Pomfret, and where his roots are firmly planted.
“This was the first place I started training,” said Lauzon, 15-4. “I learned how to do an armlock and triangle, and everything else there. There are such good memories, and all of that stuff happened at this place. I’ve been there since I was 17. The main trainer there, Joe Pomfret, has been like a second dad almost, and we’ve got a very tight group of guys there that are like my brothers. One of the toughest things about being in Hilo was that they would be having fights back home and I wasn’t there to train with them or be in their corner. So I’m super stoked to be back there.”
What makes this homecoming even sweeter is that he is now an owner of the school as well, hence the name change. But don’t think Lauzon is just a frontman – in addition to teaching and training, he also rolled up his sleeves, knocked down some walls, and even built a cage with his father from scratch. Yet as the top fighter in the gym, will Lauzon be tested enough in training to prepare him for his UFC battles? His past success in the Octagon answers that question in the affirmative, and he agrees without hesitation.
“Overall, I’m probably the best guy there, but my brother (rising star and UFC vet Dan Lauzon) is right on my heels so we’re constantly having competitive training, and I may be the best MMA fighter, but I don’t have the best jiu-jitsu, and I don’t have the best boxing or wrestling, so I’m constantly learning from all these different guys in different areas at my gym,” he said. “Plus, I’m not afraid to bounce around. There are a couple of jiu-jitsu schools and boxing gyms around here that I’ve gone to and wrestling teams that I’ve worked out with, so while I understand that it’s not as good to bounce around and hit all these different places, I’ll learn from whoever I can.”
Some of the most important learning lessons take place when the bell rings though, and Lauzon got more than his share of experience in Colorado when he took on Florian in an all-Boston turf war that saw Florian score a second round TKO victory.
The finish came after a spectacular first round that saw both men tear into each other at a furious pace, one that was made even more impressive by the fact that they were fighting in Broomfield’s high altitude. But when a Florian elbow was judged by referee Herb Dean to be to the back of Lauzon’s head, the 24-year old was not only cut, but forced to give up the top position he had fought for.
“That definitely didn’t help me,” he admits. “The air is thin enough as is, I’m trying to push a pretty furious pace, I work and get my takedown, and then I get fouled and lose my takedown. People can dispute whether it was a foul or not, but the fact remains that Herb Dean stood us up. In the referee’s eyes, it was definitely a foul, so why would you stand us up? So that didn’t help me. Then I was bleeding all over the place, and I actually thought the fight was over. But I jumped right back into it, which maybe wasn’t the smartest idea.”
Between rounds, Lauzon got little relief, as the cut on the back of his head required work, forcing him to lean over while sitting on his stool. Subsequently, he wasn’t able to replenish his depleted gas tank, and when the bell rang, he felt it.
“I got up and my legs were so heavy,” he said. “I had no air.”
Then there was Florian, who got Lauzon to the canvas in the second and mounted him. For what seemed like forever, Florian reigned down blows on Lauzon. Lauzon gamely tried to escape, but to no avail.
“I was stuck and I was not getting out of that mount,” he said. “I didn’t feel like he was doing damage, and I saw all the punches
coming, so I kept thinking, I hope they don’t stop this, I hope they don’t stop this.”
At 3:28 of the round, the fight was halted, and Lauzon had suffered his first UFC loss. Yet for everything that didn’t go his way, there are no sour grapes.
“Above all, Kenny’s awesome,” said Lauzon. “You can’t win every single fight and I have no shame in losing to someone like Kenny. The guy’s very talented, and he works hard. But win or lose, I’m gonna go a hundred percent the entire time. I would rather lose pushing the pace, then win a boring fight that goes to a decision. I hate watching a fight where someone gets a takedown and stalls, or where a guy is running the entire time. I want to be the guy that goes after it, and I’m either gonna beat that guy or he’s gonna beat me, and it’s gonna be clear cut who the better guy is.”
On Wednesday, Lauzon resumes his quest to be the better guy when he takes on Kyle Bradley in Omaha, Nebraska. On paper, it’s the type of fight that seems tailor-made for Lauzon, but don’t expect the New Englander to be looking at Bradley’s 33 second loss to Chris Lytle as a forecast of things to come.
“I’m going into the fight to do as much damage and end the fight as quickly as possible,” he said. “But I’m not gonna go in there and say ‘oh, Lytle knocked him out in 33, so I have to do it in 32.’ I’m not gonna get into that game and start psyching myself out. Another thing is, I don’t want to look at him like I’m gonna beat him in 33 seconds. Could it happen? It’s possible, but he could beat me in 33 seconds too if I’m thinking like that.”
Lauzon is well aware of Bradley’s pre-UFC resume, and the two even go back a bit through friendly postings on the mixedmartialarts.com forum. In fact, before his fight with Lytle, Bradley contacted Lauzon for advice on how to deal with stepping into the Octagon for the first time as a heavy underdog, considering Lauzon’s experience from his UFC 63 debut against Jens Pulver in 2006.
Most importantly, Lauzon knows that the Bradley who stepped in on short notice and at a higher weight class to face Lytle isn’t likely to be the one across the Octagon from him on Wednesday. But that respect will go away when the fight starts, and if Lauzon blasts Bradley out early, he doesn’t care that the naysayers may dismiss the win simply as a win over a guy Chris Lytle beat in 33 seconds, not knowing that Bradley is a good fighter who had a bad night at UFC 81.
“I would rather have them not know that Kyle Bradley’s a good fighter than seeing me lose,” said Lauzon. “I like the guy and I’ve got a ton of respect for him, but I would be offended if he didn’t try to put me away as fast as possible too.”
| " | “It’s not so hard to get up and train when it’s 85 and beautiful out,” said Lauzon. “It’s a little tougher when you’re back in Boston and there’s a foot and a half of snow outside. So I think it actually made it a little bit easier to get up being in Hilo.” |
