Just over two months ago, Lawrence Lui got a call from the folks at the UFC. While it wasn’t exactly the call that he wanted, they let him know that they would like him to be an alternate for the Road to UFC tournament.
It was a no-brainer for Lui. Not only because it was a step closer to his dream, but also because he had an inkling that he would be stepping in.
“I’ve had a full camp and I only got confirmed as replacing one of the other fighters maybe five or six weeks ago. But I was already like in full swing of, I was assuming that someone’s going to pull out. That’s the nature of fight camps and eight people over eight weeks. Someone was going to be out,” he said. “[My opponent, Zhang,] is a replacement as well. I forgot the name of my original opponent, but he was from the PI. He was being trained here, and I got wind that he might be out maybe two weeks ago.”
All of those changes hasn’t really phased the City Kickboxing product. He knows some of his opponent’s tendencies, but he really feels like his game is the important thing to focus on.
“Some things have like slightly adjusted based on what my coaches have seen, and mostly have stayed the same,” Lui said. “Game plans really should revolve around what you can do or what my strengths are, and how to apply them to opponents, and opponents tend to see. And I think a lot of what my strengths are are kind of carried over between these opponents, but not really too much has changed, and like my mental state hasn’t changed at all.”
While nothing has changed, he’s tight lipped on how he’s going to get it done. That’s not because he’s not confident, but because of an old adage.
“From the wise words of Nick Diaz, a gentleman never tells,” he said with a smile. “I think I’m gonna. but I don’t really like to predict how I’m gonna win.”
You can catch his fight with Qinghe Zhang on the fourth installment of this year’s Road to UFC. That card gets started this Friday at 9am EST.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview on the latest edition of the Top Turtle MMA Podcast. The interview begins at 17:32.
