“It was really hard (cutting weight to 170), you know, but every single time I… suffer, when I feel tired, when I feel I couldn’t make it, I would go to the computer, and I would check all the people talking bad about me, and I would get the motivation to fill me up and keep going. So I’m quite happy that people doubted me, it keeps me motivated and keeps me in the place that I want to be.”
By defeating Marquardt, Lombard certainly entered the welterweight division with a substantial splash. As far as who is next for the Cuban-Australian fighter, he has his sights set on someone who can bring him up into the top of the division.
“I think that Carlos Condit is high ranked, right? OK, I’ll take Carlos Condit,” Lombard had said during the interview about the UFC’s No. 2 ranked contender. Lombard also said that he would be willing to fight Condit’s most recent opponent, Martin Kampmann, who is currently ranked 7th.
“My style of fighting has nothing to do with judo. I love judo, and I’m always going to love judo, and I’m always gonna be calling myself a judo player. I trained that sport for seven years. I went everywhere in judo, and I competed at the highest level. But, I don’t use judo at all. I knock people out. I like to be exciting. That was my goal a long time ago, I want to be exciting, and I want the people to want to watch me fight. Unfortunately judo is not as exciting as MMA. So I tried to develop a style where [people] would come see me fight. So I started training stand-up, and I got myself an instructor. That’s how I like to fight, I don’t like to grapple. I like to stand up. If somebody has to get KO’s, somebody has to go out.”
As for how he – a man who entered this sport with a background in grappling – has been able to find the power to score 19 professional KO’s, Lombard says it comes from relentless training of strength and power.
“I think I was like training and develop[ing] my strength and my power, you know, it’s like Ronday Rousey,” Lombard said, citing fellow judoka and the UFC women’s bantamweight champion. “She lifts bodies all her life, you get to the point when you’re stronger than everyone else. She’s done it for so many years that it gets to the point she’s like four times stronger than all the guys she’s gonna face. And that is because she’s been training longer and harder than every single other [person]. Put it this way, she’s been training since she was five, or whatever, lifting bodies and training hard three or four times a day. There’s no way any other women can claim that. So I tried to kind of like a lot more in striking all the time, punching the bag and doing those things – more striking than anything else to develop that strength, that power.”
