Justin Lawrence

[Briezy]

Kid is a beast. Sky high potential based on what i've seen thus far. only 21. Easily the favorite to dominate this entire season.

[tantryl]

And if you dislike Bones because Jackson told him to check on Machida, you now have to dislike Lawrence 'cause Cruz told him to check on Marcello.

But yeah, he looked pretty good against Marcello. Although he to play his own game a bit more - he was too worried about the take down.

[Ash]

I'm not sold. Marcello isn't really a striker, there were horrible fundamental problems with his technique, and on top of that he only started getting clipped when time was winding down and he started opening up haphazardly. To assume Lawrence would roll the field based on that fight is asinine given that he showed nothing additional to his entry fight, and there being so many question marks about the rest of his MMA game. Not to mention, he started to gas out pretty badly 7 or 8 minutes into a fight that had minimal grappling and where he dictated the pace and frequency of the striking exchanges. Let's see how he does against a tough wrestler before crowning him.

[krazo101]

In the lead up to the fight, Lawrence said that he had over 150 amateur fights. I wonder how true that statement is and what he considers to be an "amateur" fight. I don't know much about the MMA amateur circuit but I've never heard of any professional MMA fighter coming anywhere close to that number of fights. Then again, he may have been talking about amateur boxing or kickboxing fights, but who knows.

[skeletonrock]

I thought it was a good fight for both guys. Obviously these guys are amateurs, so there are technical and cardio issues, but Lawrence looks good.

[Ash]

I too wondered about the alleged 150 fights. Even if they were just smokers, that's an incredibly suspiciously high number for a 21 year old.

[tantryl]

I didn't notice that 150 fight thing. That's pretty dodgy.

*EDIT* And while I thought Lawrence looked pretty good, it didn't make me go "he's going to win this whole thing".

[Cbear]

Are we starting to see the version 4.0 fighters starting to emerge who will replace Andy and gsp? That evolution should be happening about now shouldnt it?

[Ash]

Doubtful.

[concrete ghost]

I too wondered about the alleged 150 fights. Even if they were just smokers, that's an incredibly suspiciously high number for a 21 year old.

I assume he includes all his slap fights with his sister when he was 8.