Joe Lauzon is least bothered about UFC changing his opponent – UFC News
Joe Lauzon believes that changing his opponent at the eleventh hour will not affect his performance against Jamie Varner, a fight he plans on winning.
Lauzon was initially scheduled to take on Terry Etim but due to an unexpected injury, the latter was forced to pull out of the bout in June 2012.
With only two months left for the pay-per-view, the UFC management has tried its level best to find an appropriate opponent for Joe but after much effort, Jamie was the only replacement available for the bout.
Also known as ‘J-Lau’, Joe revealed that he trained for Terry, which means that with this change, his two months of strenuous training went completely in vain.
Lauzon commented that there is a huge difference between Terry and Jamie, adding that Etim is a tall fighter with phenomenal reach, whereas Jamie is short heighted with a very different brawling style.
Joe stated, “Terry Etim’s style is so different from Jamie Varner’s. (Etim) is like 6-foot-3 or something – really tall, really lanky, uses all his long-range weapons and his kicks. We did a lot of (training) that was very specific to Terry Etim that only
he does. And now I'm going to a guy who's completely different and doesn't do any of the same stuff. We have like two months of training that was down the drain.”
Despite the fact that Joe’s hard work was simply wasted, the 28-year-old still believes that he is in a win-win situation and will opt for either a submission or a knockout win just to grab the bonus.
Joe commented, “I’m going after that submission, I’m going after that knockout, whatever it’s got to be.” This will be Joe’s 29th career bout.
The Massachusetts proud has won 17 of his total 21 wins by submission and is considered a lethal submission specialist. Although he is coming off a knockout loss to Anthony Pettis still he is denoted as a slugger who loves to finish bouts.
Jamie, 27, also possesses almost a similar resume. The Arizona proud has been in a total of 29 mixed martial art bouts, boasting 20 wins.
Furthermore, Varner, also known as ‘C-4’, is also a submission specialist as a huge 11 of his wins came by way of submission.
The odds are in favour of Joe as he is a UFC veteran however Jamie is coming off a pretty big debut UFC win over Edson Barboza which might shift odd-makers decision a bit.
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