Chris Weidman will be fighting Tom Lawlor on the SpikeTV portion of UFC 139. He recently sat down with MMA Diehards to discuss his upcoming fight, his previous fights and more.

Are you going to come out with some outrageous walkout? You know your opponent is known for that, do you plan to up the stakes yourself and do something like that?
Nah I am not that creative. That’s kind of his thing and I will let him shine with that. I will try to shine when I get in the cage. I give him props for those walkouts as they are pretty sick.

In taking on Tom Lawlor, obviously he is a tough guy. We know your wrestling background, your grappling background. As much as you would like to test your standup, eventually you are going to take this guy down and punish him right?
I am going to test out my striking first. Every single one of my fights I throw punches and kicks before I get a takedown. As always I plan to mix it up and work some standup. I want to make the fight as exciting as possible.

In your debut fight against Alessio Sakara were you affected by the UFC jitters at all?
A little bit, but not too crazy. I would say it got to me a little bit, but not enough to stop me from winning that fight.

Were you surprised how that fight went?
The thing is I took that fight on short notice and had a little injury leading into it. I was a little unsure of what was going to happen. I didn’t get any sparing in. I didn’t know where I was at. My mind it could have gone bad. I didn’t know how I was going to do without the proper training. But I have great coaches around me that had faith in me.

You have had some trouble with injuries in your UFC career and fighters always say they don’t go into a fight without any. How close though do you feel to being 100%?
I am feeling awesome. Knock on wood I still have another week of training, but I am doing great.

Are you excited for the UFC on Fox debut?
Yeah I am pumped. I just hope that fight is as exciting as I think it is going to be. People who haven’t been exposed to mma and the UFC and their first time if it is a great show they become fans.

It’s been apparent in Tom Lawlor’s past couple of fights that his cardio is a bit of a problem. Are you really busting out the cardio in this fight or do you feel like you want to punish him for three rounds.
I like that, I am going to punish him. I mean one of my strengths in wrestling or jiu jitsu tournaments is my cardio. I definitely went hard with the cardio. I had a lot of time to prepare for this fight and my cardio has never been better. I could go at a very extreme pace for three rounds. I am not going to stop till he breaks mentally. I am going to be looking for the finish. I would love to knock him out cold, but I also would love to just totally dominate the fight for three rounds and break him.

Are you a proponent of training at different camps or are you sticking with one camp?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I go to Renzo Gracie’s academy. I am from Ray Longo and Matt Serra’s camp. But I do travel into the city to work with Renzo. I go to Delnore Kickboxing in Long Island. I do travel around a little bit, but for me I feel it is important to have a home. A place where you have guys that really care about you. If you are traveling around and traveling around it is hard to find that because they already have that. Ray Longo and Matt Serra I have that. It’s good to go around to different gyms to learn new techniques and sparring, but for your confidence and mental edge it is important to have a home.

How often do you go down to Renzo’s?
I go down every Monday and Saturday.

What song do you plan to walk out to?
The UFC just texted me about it and I haven’t had time to think of it. It will probably be something like Empire State of Mind.

Is it you can chose whatever you want or is there a list?
The UFC will let you pick whatever song you want and then approve it or not. Sometimes you pick a song that someone else already has and you have to pick a different one.

With Tom Lawlor moving up to Connecticut have you run across him in training circles at all or friends that have?
No. I didn’t even know he was up here. I know that he is out in California with Dan Henderson. But I didn’t know he was in Connecticut.

Do you feel like if you beat Tom that you will be a main card kind of guy or is that not something you really think about much?
I think so. I think I will probably be up there as far as my next fight. It depends who they give me. When I first started, my first fight was on a main card on a Versus, obviously not PPV. My manager at the time said once you were on the main card, all your fights will be on the main card. Then my next one was on Spike which was good. This one was supposed to be on Spike, then it wasn’t, now it might be. It’s a little stressful trying to figure it out and let my friends and family know so at this point I am just not worried about it.

You can listen to the full interview at MMA Diehards

Alessio Sakara Chris Weidman MMA Diehards Tom Lawlor UFC on Fox