"Ruthless" Robbie Lawler (born March 20, 1982) is the current EliteXC middleweight champion. He is a member of Matt Hughes’ H.I.T. Squad, having previously trained with Pat Miletich at Miletich Fighting Systems along with fellow mixed martial artists Tim “The Maine-iac” Syliva, Jeremy Horn & Jens Pulver.
Lawler is known for his aggressive stand-up and vicious ground and pound; he has KO power in both hands and good wrestling skills. In the past his style has been border line reckless, but as of late Lawler has started maturing as a fighter and is a lot more patient now when looking for the KO.
On March 31, 2007, he fought Frank Trigg for the ICON middleweight championship and ended up winning by a brutal KO in the fourth round. He captured his second Middleweight title on September 15, 2007, against Murilo "Ninja" Rua. This time Lawler was fighting for the EliteXC middleweight championship and won by TKO in the third round. Lawler was a lot more methodical in his approach to this fight, pacing himself while waiting for Ninja to tire himself out before unleashing some big shots and TKO’ing the PRIDE veteran.
The “Ruthless” one was later stripped of his ICON title after pulling out of his fight against Hawaii's Kala "Kolohe" Hose due to injury. He is now scheduled to defend his Middleweight title against Scott Smith on the next EliteXC card which takes place May 31st 2008. If Lawler wins this fight a match against Phil Baroni has been mentioned numerous times and could very well happen if the New York Bad Ass can also win his next fight. Other than Baroni one of the biggest fights for Lawler in the middleweight division, outside of the UFC, is Cung Le who recently won the Strikeforce title. This fight doesn’t look like it’ll happen this year but EliteXC and Strikeforce have co-promoted events in the past and we could very well see this fight in the future.
