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If you assumed that Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal could only function on cocky trash-talker mode, you need to watch this video taken Saturday night, in which Mo is so emotionally vulnerable after defeating Gegard Mousasi in Nashville that he can’t even give Ariel Helwani an interview while standing up. Lawal credits his victory to his trainers, and to the fact that most MMA fighters don’t have good takedown defense. But overall, he wasn’t too impressed with his performance: "I got lazy a few times. I took [Mousasi] for granted because I didn’t respect his skills all too much because I knew I could beat him. I should have taken him more serious, I couldn’t even finish him…I didn’t want it to go five rounds, I wanted to leave him sleeping, but he’s tough, man, he’s seasoned."

And now, let’s all take a moment to reflect on that fact that King Mo is the light-heavyweight champion of a major MMA organization after just seven bouts — only three of which were actually contested at light-heavyweight. While some may interpret that as a triumph of style over substance, or as a symbol of how thin Strikeforce’s 205-pound division is, I just see a guy who did everything right — a fighter whose brief career should be studied by every young scrapper trying to get into the game.

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