This week's episode of "The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir" featured the team selections and the first elimination match in the light-heavyweight division.
Tom Lawlor, representing Team Mir, met up with MMAjunkie.com blogger and Team Nogueira fighter Ryan Bader. While Lawlor defended Bader's advances early in the fight, Bader eventually scored a well-timed takedown and put himself in position for a vicious fight-ending knockout.
Find out Lawlor's thoughts on losing the bout, the season's first practical joke, and "This season's Chris Leben," Junie Allen Browning.
MMAjunkie.com: First of all, how were you selected for your appearance on the show?
Tom Lawlor: My manager contacted the casting people, and the casting people called me and told me to send in a video -- which I did. I think just my amazing good looks captivated them enough that they needed to put me on TV.
MMAjunkie.com: You won your elimination fight with Ryan Lopez with relative ease. What was your mindset after earning your way into the house?
Tom Lawlor: Honestly it was so stressful being locked in a hotel room for three days and having no contact with anybody. You can't leave, you can't do anything else. And I just sat there in the hotel room thinking over and over, 'If I lose this, it's like the end of my life.' I wasn't going to let the opportunity for all the exposure that goes along with being on this show slip through my fingers. I was more relieved (to win) than anything else.
MMAjunkie.com: You were the last light-heavyweight selected for Team Mir. Was there any frustration or concern on your part due to your draft position?
Tom Lawlor: I thought that Frank Mir did a really good job of picking the people that he got on his team. I thought everybody on his team was a quality fighter, including me. I thought that I got kind of slighted or overlooked by Nogueira in the choosing process. He took somebody who admittedly looked good in defeat, Kyle Kingsbury. He picked him over me. He picked Shane Primm over me who, technically on paper, I have a loss to -- but it was a [disqualification] loss. I'm pretty confident that I was controlling the fight against him. I felt overlooked, but I wasn't completely shocked or shattered by it.
MMAjunkie.com: Your team was responsible for the first house prank of the season. What was your involvement with the boxer raid on Team Nogueira?
Tom Lawlor: That was a pretty good prank, I thought, by Krzysztof Soszynksi. By that point we had been in the house about four or five days. And let me tell you, time went by slow because we had barely been training. We spent a whole day doing media stuff. We spent a whole day doing team picks. So it was just dragging on. We didn't have anything to look forward to.
So as soon as they went ahead and picked that first fight and we had something to go ahead and do, or somebody to focus on, Krzysztof just went ahead and ran with [the prank]. And he did a great job of organizing it. You see me in the background holding up the bed, and we all took turns saran-wrapping [Ryan Bader's] stuff to the bed. I mean it took a good half-hour for us to do it. And it probably took about the same for Ryan to go ahead and cut the stuff. It just helped us kill time.
MMAjunkie.com: The episode seemed to show Team Nogueira coming together as a unit while Team Mir didn't appear to have the same cohesion. Was this an accurate portrayal of life in the early days?
Tom Lawlor: To a certain degree, yeah. It might come out a little more later on in the show. You'll see even more of a split, perhaps. But a lot of it just had to do with the personalities put on both teams. Our first couple practices as a team with Team Mir were team practices. Everybody together doing the same thing. After time people started getting pulled and preparing for fights -- it started breaking up a little bit.
And one of the things I don't think a lot of people take into mind, too, is the fact that Frank Mir lives in Vegas. Ken Hahn lives in Vegas. Robert Drysdale lives in Vegas. Pretty much the whole coaching staff is from Vegas. They have wives, they have lives. They were there coaching while also living their lives.
Nogueira and his team were out there just for the show. They're not from there. So they don't have these other factors that they have to go ahead and look at like the coaches on Team Mir did. So I can understand why Nogueira and those guys were over at the house for dinner and stuff. Because they don't have their family around, and the other guys did.
MMAjunkie.com: Your hair was certainly something that distinguished you, yet you were open to criticizing your own style. Where did that style come from, and was it something you did just for the show?
Tom Lawlor: That was something I did just for the show. For the past two years before I got on the show I was a school teacher. So they kind of put a cramp in my style a little bit. I couldn't do the things I wanted to do, or have crazy, outlandish hair or other things. Once I knew I was selected for the show -- I look pretty generic. I don't stand out like Junie, or some of these other guys. So I got the biggest jack-ass haircut I could. I had to make sure that if I did end up losing in that first fight, hey, look at my hair. I was supposed to lose. Pathetic. If I made it into the house it was just something to differentiate myself a little more.
MMAjunkie.com: Before the fight, Nogueira seemed to feel Bader was the right opponent to take you out due to the similarities in the strengths of your wrestling games. How did you feel you matched up with Bader?
Tom Lawlor: I thought I matched up pretty well. The fight wasn't going much differently than I expected it to the point before I got knocked out.
MMAjunkie.com: You seemed very comfortable at defending Bader's shot early in the fight. Was it a technical misjudgement or a break in concentration that left you open for the big takedown?
Tom Lawlor: I had stuffed a couple of his shots, and I think I just got a little overconfident in my ability to do that. Instead of doing technique, I was just thinking, 'He's not going to be able to take me down now. I've already stopped him twice. And I came in real hard, trying to take his head off. I remember thinking to myself, 'I'm going to take his head off right here.' And he was able to slip that and take me down. It was a tactical error on my part. And his technique is great and he's a good fighter.
MMAjunkie.com: Was there any frustration on your part that you were eliminated so quickly into the season?
Tom Lawlor: No. It's hard to know what they're going to show, but I really took advantage of my time out there. I got in some really good training with some world-class guys. I'm sure they'll show at least parts of that as the season goes on because some of has to do with the story line that I'm sure they'll touch on.
But it kind of let me focus a little bit. I had been training pretty much six months non-stop because of fights and stuff like that. So it was nice get a little bit of a break where I didn't have to focus on a fight coming up, but I could just focus on getting better and improving my skills. We had a great coaching staff that I was able to work with, and I took advantage of it.
The only thing that's frustrating is being the first guy to leave, essentially, I'm in the same realm as all the other guys that lost in the first round. So being the first guy out looks worse to the layperson. But they're idiots.
MMAjunkie.com: On a completely different topic, was Junie Allen Browning as crazy as he appeared so quickly into the show?
Tom Lawlor: Yes. Yeah. Episode 3 doesn't even show as much as you'll get to see. They've done a great job of editing so far to fit the fights, and you'll see the more insanity in the next episode.
MMAjunkie.com: With the experience behind you, would you do it again despite your early exit?
Tom Lawlor: Absolutely. There's not one part of me that wouldn't do it again. I might try out for next season at 185 pounds. With the way the economy's going and stuff, I'm having a hard time eating. I get free food if I make it into the house.
I'd just like to thank the people on the internet that have been supporting me -- friends, family. I'm going to see if I can get an internet petition started to send to Zuffa so that they can bring me back, or at least let me be a ring-card girl. I heard Edith is having problems with her visa or something. Maybe they'll let me get in there and take her spot for a little while.
