Muhammad ‘King Mo’ Lawal faces the Bellator Light Heavyweight Champion Ryan Bader in the Bellator Heavyweight Grand Prix on May 12 at SAP center in San Jose, California. King Mo believes he’s got Bader figured out.
“I see a guy who fights with no rhythm,” Lawal said. “Tick tock, tick tock, one two, one two. A big, strong bully. He’s not smooth, man. He has no rhythm. It’s like this, if we go to the club, I’d pull the females, he ain’t pulling nothing because he’s got no rhythm. If they play a song, could he dance? No. He’s rhythmless. He goes to the club, he probably does the Macarena or something like that. Or, what’s that Night at the Roxbury move when they shake their head side to side? Night at the Roxbury, that’s his rhythm. One, two. One, two. One, two. Side to side. One, two. He ain’t got rhythm. Come on, man.”
Talking about the size disadvantage
King Mo talked about the size disadvantage faced by him in Heavyweight Grand Prix as he usually fights in the Light Heavyweight division and also about Ryan Bader’s use of his size to control opponents.
It ain’t about the size of the person,” Lawal said. “It’s about the size of the heart and the size of the fight in the heart. So you can be big, but one thing I learned growing up is them big guys that grew up big, they were cowards. I remember my cousin told me that, ‘Mo, if you fight someone bigger, pop them in the mouth because they ain’t used to fighting and it’ll freeze ‘em.’ So when you see a big boy — like, Shaquille O’Neal can’t fight because who’s going to fight Shaquille O’Neal in seventh grade when he’s like 6-foot-5? Nobody. But when you get older, people will test you. I was small, but I was always small, so I had to fight for my life. I’m pretty sure Bader didn’t grow up fighting.
“He can say all he wants, but bro, it’s like this: He’s a bully. The moment anyone steps to him, he gets kind of scared. Think about when he fought Ilir (Latifi), right? He beat Ilir, but he fought Ilir scared. He fought Ilir scared because Ilir put his hands on him in the first round. And he got the knockout, but it’s not like he really meant to do that. He got lucky Ilir went to take him down. It’s not like he went and timed it. He got lucky, man. Come on, he didn’t know. He didn’t even know. He just closed his eyes and threw a kick.”
Mo wasn’t surprised with the trend of the smaller man defeating the bigger fighter in the Heavyweight Grand Prix so far. He intends to continue the streak with the win over Ryan Bader.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” Lawal said. “Look, I think I’m 9-1 or 10-1 at heavyweight. What’s the surprise? Fedor’s not a big, true heavyweight. Fedor, when he was in his prime, wasn’t a true heavyweight. Fedor was like 220 pounds, man. Look at boxing, Mike Tyson wasn’t a true heavyweight. Neither was Ali. They were small heavyweights. Now you have superheavyweights, but Deontay Wilder ain’t no true heavyweight. Deontay Wilder is 215 pounds tops. Everything thinks size is something. There’s a song by Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys called ‘Size Ain’t Sh*t.’ Go listen to that song.
“You see Royce complaining about size? No. You see Sakuraba complain about size? No. Wanderlei (Silva)? No. Real fighters don’t complain about size. B*tch fighters are worried about size and try to put size on. Did Dan Henderson worry about putting on size when he fought Fedor? No. When Dan Henderson fought (Antonio Rodrigo) Nogueira, was he talking about size? No. All real fighters don’t care about no size. We go out there and just fight.”
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