‘Filthy’ Tom Lawlor On Finding Out He’d Face Alex Coughlin At Bloodsport 7

Tom Lawlor says there’s never a heads up on who will face who at Bloodsport.

Tom Lawlor was a UFC fighter with a record of 10-6-0. With a legitimate fighting background like that, Tom is the perfect candidate for Bloodsport, the hybrid wrestling/MMA events.

Tom will be competing at Bloodsport 7 on Friday, October 22 against Alex Coughlin, and speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Tom revealed that he was never given much of a heads up regarding who he would go against at the event but he’s excited to step into the ring with somebody he hasn’t in 2021.

“The whole time when names were getting announced for Bloodsport and I would see matches announced by Josh on Twitter, I don’t know that anybody knows the match-ups before he announces them. Nobody’s clued us in. So, I’m sitting there and I’m like, ‘Who’s it gonna be?’ I see a match announced, I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s not going to be one of those guys,’ and you start wondering who it’s going to be. I’m looking at the list of guys and this is a guy that over the past year, maybe a year and a half, since we faced off.”

Lawlor continued, “This guy’s grown tremendously. I know he’s done work with Josh. I have been able to witness firsthand what they do under Shibata and I’m sure that he’s gonna be more than versed. I know he’s more than well prepared in legitimate fighting styles and fighting arts. This guy is a horse. Pound for pound he’s probably the strongest guy, I think, on the entire New Japan roster. New Japan Strong, the main roster included. He’s out there lifting two guys at once. He’s just got phenomenal strength. Which is very, very tough to deal with.

“But I have experience on my side. One of the things that’s good and bad about Coughlin being in the position that he’s in is that in the young lion system, you’re restricted in a way as to the offense that you can have. I’m not. So I’m gonna have a great variety of techniques to throw at him. His basics and his fundamentals are gonna be off the charts, through the roof. But it’s not gonna be enough to carry him in this contest. I know because he tweeted about this back when the match was announced. I was the last guy he wrestled before he injured his neck a year ago. I’m just going to go right back after it. Why would I do anything differently?”

Elsewhere in the interview, Tom speaks about how the UFC reacted to his wrestling transition and why he believes they weren’t over the moon and supportive of it. Read more here.

Fightful will have results of Bloodsport 7. You can preorder the event here.