By Guilherme Cruz

Photo Esther Lin

With almost 300 Wrestling fights on his professional record, Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal changed to MMA in great style. Unbeaten in seven bouts, the American prepares himself to put his Strikeforce belt in line for the first time, and the challenger is the Brazilian Rafael “Feijão’ Cavalcante. On an exclusive report, published on TATAME Magazine in June, “King Mo” told his story and confessed: he does not like to be the favorite.

“I love to be the underdog, I’ve been the underdog my whole life”, joked the wrestler, pointing out his great idols. “I inspired myself on great wrestlers when I began my journey on MMA. I admired a lot Kevin Jackson, Mark Kerr, Mark Coleman, Kenny Mnday, Randy Couture and Renzo Gracie”. Coming from a surprising win over the sensation Gerard Mousasi, the new champion set a “safe” strategy to win. “That was the best strategy at that point because I’m still new on this sport, I’m training for a year and a half only… To beat Gerard Mousasi was my greatest conquest”, affirmed the American, who told us about his trainings in Brazil on his preparation to beat the champion at that point.

“The most important thing in MMA is to adapt yourself and improve in all matters… The people who train with you helps you to improve on the things you need in order to win”, says the champion, who trained along with Fabrício Werdum and Renato Babalu for the combat against Mousasi. After winning Strikeforce’s belt, Lawal called in a black belt to join his camp. “Bruno (Bastos) is a monster! I’ve tapped out so many times on the trainings that I think I got a hole on my arm (laughs)… He’s helping me a lot on my positioning”, jokes Muhammad. “I want to keep on training and evolving. I won the belt, but I have a lot to improve”.