Former WFL Grand Prix Champion Joe Lauzon turned heads and made headlines in September 2006 in his upset win over former UFC Lightweight Champion Jens Pulver. He knocked Pulver out in only 48 seconds. Lauzon holds a professional MMA record of 16-4, with all of his wins coming by submission or knock-out.
After losing a bout to Kenny Florian, Lauzon accrued another TKO victory over Team Voodoo's Kyle Bradley this past September at UFC Fight Night 15. Joe Lauzon will be fighting former WEC champion Hermes Franca on the main event of UFC Fight Night in Tampa, Florida on February 7th.
Yael-Of all the opponents offered to you, you picked a top tier fighter who’s only lost by decision. Why did you pick him to fight?
Joe Lauzon-I thought it’d be a good fight! I think it’d be an exciting fight. He definitely beat a lot of good guys. I mean, he beat Jamie Varner; he went to a decision with Sean Sherk... He’s a top fighter, but I think I definitely can do certain things that could prevent him from winning. It would be nice to fight a guy that beat Nate Diaz. It would be nice to fight a guy that went for the title. I want to fight the best guys out there.
Yael-Your last loss was to Kenny Florian, who was ranked pretty close to you going in but is now ranked way higher.
Joe Lauzon-I felt that he was ranked a bit better than me going in. but I was told that this was the fight that the UFC really wanted, so I stepped up. I did lose. but I think I definitely could’ve won. But I don’t care about ranks anyway. It’s all about the fight at hand.
Yael-Were you upset by that elbow to the back of the head?
Joe Lauzon-At the time, I wasn’t upset. I thought they were going to stop the fight, and when I realized they weren’t going to stop it I was really excited. It was a clearly illegal blow. It was like someone hit me in the back of the head with an ax. If you watch the video you can even see my glove is completely red. I was bleeding like crazy from that cut. So at the time I was pretty excited because I thought that they were going to stop the fight and they didn’t, but looking back at it, I think we should’ve gotten some time to recover and deal with the cut.
Yael-I know there are accidents; CB Dollaway for example says it’s hard to hit a moving target… But Kenny Florian seems to elbow on the back of the head a lot. Do you think he did it on purpose?
Joe Lauzon-I think it was definitely intentional. Kenny was arguing with the ref, saying that it should have been okay. The official rule is supposed to be a 1 or 2” strip from the base of your skill right out the center. Anything that is outside that strip is okay. But the way that the ref explained it to us in the locker room was “no hitting behind the ears.” When I was in Kenny’s guard, I was burying my head the entire time so that he wouldn’t hit me in the head. Then he hit me in the back of the head. I lost my takedown when they stood us up and I definitely felt rushed the entire time. I don’t understand it at all. I don’t understand why I get fouled and the referee takes away my advantage. I hit Cole Miller in the back of the head and I can say it was 100% an accident. I was in half guard and it was unintentional. When Kenny hit me he was pushing down on my head. I don’t think it was accidental in the slightest bit. I think it was intentional. I don’t understand how I can get fouled, clear as day, the fighter was clearly trying to do it, the referee understands it’s a problem, the referee stands us up, I figure the fight’s gonna be over and I turn around and the fight was restarted. I don’t understand why I wasn’t given back my position. I don’t understand why they didn’t call the doctor in to look at the cut that was clearly from an illegal blow. I don’t understand why he didn’t take a point away. I just don’t understand any of it at all.
Yael-Do you think it was intentional on the part of Herb Dean?
Joe Lauzon-No, not at all. I think it just happened really quickly. He stood us up for a reason and then he didn’t know what to do so he just said, “Let’s fight.” But he’s definitely not on my favorites list right now because of that.
Yael-You went to Hawaii to train with BJ Penn. Why did you decide to go back to Massachusetts?
Joe Lauzon-I was out in Hawaii training with BJ Penn, and it was really great. I had an awesome time, and I got to hang with Urijah Faber who is super cool, and the rest of the team. But Hawaii is kind of isolated, and I didn’t have a car when I was out there. I was staying at the fighter house. I felt like I couldn’t control very much, and I’m a bit of a control freak. Also I started really missing the guys at my gym. So now I’m back home, and I get to see the guys at my gym, and I’ve got my car, and it’s good to be back.
Yael-Your brother Dan is also a fighter with a 10-2 record. Did you two beat each other up a lot when you were growing up?
Joe Lauzon-Oh yeah, all the time. We used to always wrestle and then we got a trampoline and it was out of control. I can’t even tell you how many times people were dumped on their head and it ended in tears.
Yael-You were on season 5 of the Ultimate Fighter, which was being coached by Jens Pulver and BJ Penn. Was it weird being on the show after winning a bout against coach Jens Pulver?
Joe Lauzon-It would have been, except that the night that I fought Jens we hung out for an hour waiting around for the press conference talking about video games. Jens is really great; he gets along with absolutely everybody.
Yael-You spent a lot of time doing some training camps in Iraq, can you talk about that?
Joe Lauzon-Yeah, I went out there with Heath Herring and Jorge Rivera who did the stand up, and I showed some ground stuff; it was really great. There were so many guys there with varying levels of experience—some had no experience at all and some had already done some amateur fights.
Yael-You were a guest instructor at one of the training camps for Tony Blauer, what was that like?
Joe Lauzon-It was great. It was the biggest training facility I’ve ever been in. They are teaming up with Crossfit right now. I really like the gear he uses. You can really hit full-force, get a lot of elbows in without worrying about cutting somebody up… a really hard elbow feels like a good jab. So you can really go all-out. It is really helpful in my training.
Yael-So you are actually still a white belt in Jiu-Jitsu right?
Joe Lauzon-Yeah, I’ve actually mostly trained in no-gi submission grappling; I think I’ve only put a gi on maybe about twenty times, mostly in Hilo with BJ. I can usually hang with most anyone though.
Yael-So what’s the deal with BJ Penn wanting to fight you?
Joe Lauzon-Oh, he didn’t say he wanted to fight me. He just said if I beat Kenny Florian and I had a chance at a title shot, he would make me fight him. He just didn’t want me to pass up something like a title shot because he wants me to fulfill my dreams.
Yael-So I heard you were going to fight Karo Parisyan. J And the Easter Bunny was going to be the ref.
Joe Lauzon-Yeah, that was a rumor that got started on the MMA Underground, and for some reason everyone ran with it and nobody read beyond the first paragraph. I also said I was going to fight at 170 lbs in the welterweight division with Reggie Warren Jr. as a trainer, with the Kool Aid Man in my corner and that the Easter Bunny was going to be the referee. I’m not really sure how anybody actually believed any of that. Then I was a guest on Tagg Radio and I said “yeah, I’m fighting Parisyan and the Easter Bunny is reffing” and everybody continued to run with that too. It was the funniest thing to me because I could have said the sky is green and people would have believed me.
Yael-Thanks for the interview!
Watch Joe Lauzon battle Hermes Franca on UFC Fight Night on February 7th!
Train with Joe at Lauzon MMA.
No comments:
Post a Comment