(“I don’t give a damn about some Bellator fighter that goes by the name of King Mo.” Well, that makes two of you. Video via TNAWrestling)

When Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal signed a dual-contract with Bellator and TNA Wrestling earlier this year, fans wondered how he’d be able to straddle the often-opposing worlds of real fighting and show fighting — a rare trick to pull off outside of Japan. But Lawal’s one-year suspension for steroids has allowed him to focus the majority of his energies on learning the pro wrestling game, and we’re starting to get the feeling that we might lose him altogether. Call it hunch, based on the fact that Mo thinks MMA is a fad, and can’t stand you people. Here’s what he told BleacherReport in an interview published yesterday:

“It starts with the way the fans don’t think for themselves,” Lawal stated. “They have to look to certain people for approval on how they think. They bash the fighters and think fighting is easier than it really is. A lot of people didn’t grow up fighting. They grew up playing football and basketball. So they can relate to missing a pass, a layup, free throws and dropping a pass, an interception or kicking a field goal.

“MMA fans never grew up fighting. They just put on their Affliction or Tapout shirts and say, ‘Hey I’m a fighter or hey I’m going to a fight.’ To me, its a joke. It is a certain demographic that’s involved and I’m not with that.“

(Mo wrote down all of his answers for this interview to prove, once more, to the Nevada State Athletic Commission that he can read and write in English.)

By Elias Cepeda

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Muhammed Lawal is truly as carefree as he sounds or if “King Mo” just doesn’t want us to see him sweat. The former All-American wrestler and current MMA light heavyweight has been embattled recently.

After exploding onto the international fight scene in 2008 Lawal suffered a violent loss, his first, to Rafael Cavalcante in 2010. In 2011 and early 2012 he got back on the winning track, stringing together two-straight but then Lawal had his win over Lorenz Larkin overturned after he failed a post-fight drug test.

A subsequent hearing, suspension, twitter outburst where he called a Nevada State Athletic Commissioner a “bitch,” and firing from Strikeforce followed. Oh yeah, Lawal also nearly died after a staph infection.

When we ask Lawal how he’s managed to stay focused and sane throughout it all he says, “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Really?

“All I care about is providing for my family,” he tells CagePotato. “And MMA is a small part of what I do to make a living.”

It certainly is about to become just one of two professional athletic careers that Lawal uses to make ends meet. Since being released by Strikeforce, Lawal has signed with Bellator and Total Nonstop Action wrestling. The idea is for him to simultaneously and regularly take part in professional wrestling and pro MMA.

I managed to catch up with Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney after Bellator 69 at the L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Lake Charles, Louisiana on Friday night. Bjorn touched on issues such as fighters who stuck out on the undercard, why the Asplund vs. Sparks fight didn’t happen, MMA in New York and much more. Come inside after the jump for the full interview, as well as fight videos from the fighters that Bjorn Rebney mentions.

(Like this, Stone Cold?)

MMA Weekly is reporting that former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal has signed with MMA promotion Bellator Fighting Championships and professional wrestling organization Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.

Lawal was fired from Strikeforce after testing positive for a banned steroid and is currently serving out a nine-month suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Because of that suspension, Lawal will have to wait to be able to compete under the Bellator banner — but since he’s also signed with TNA, he can conceivably begin making some money much sooner since professional wrestling is not regulated as a competitive sport by athletic commissions. Lawal signing with both organizations fuels rumors that Bellator and TNA  — both of which air on Viacom-owned television channels and, starting in 2013, will appear on Spike TV — will somehow collaborate or cross-promote.

(Photo courtesy of MySpace.com/triggonomics.)

Frank Trigg is a one-man industry. How many other fighters can claim to train in a gym they own, show up to fight in a shirt they designed, then talk about it the next day on their own radio show? In this exclusive interview, the man behind Triggonomics, TAGG Radio, the R1 Training Center, a handful of truly bizarre TV appearances — as well as some legendary beatdowns in the UFC, PRIDE and Icon Sport — gives us the “Twinkle Toes” perspective on fighter branding, reality television, and why he would kick Robbie Lawler’s ass in a rematch.

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CAGEPOTATO.COM: Let’s get this out of the way first: Who, where, and when are you fighting next?
FRANK TRIGG: I don’t know yet. I thought I was going to have something set up and ready to announce this week, but we don’t have anything finalized.

But you are still actively pursuing your fight career, right? It’s not like your five other jobs are getting in the way…
Absolutely, I’m trying to get as many fights as I can. I was trying to be in the DREAM middleweight tournament, but it didn’t work out.

You told MMAJunkie that doing that tournament wouldn’t benefit your brand. What exactly did you mean by that?
That’s really what all of us are trying to do — Chuck Liddell, Roger Huerta, Georges St. Pierre — all of us are trying to brand ourselves to a big enough name that we can make money outside of the fight world, and I have to make choices on what’s going to help me accomplish that. Doing commentating for TNA Wrestling helps me as a brand — it pushes me forward, it gets me in front of a different demographic and increases the size of my network. And when you’re with an organization that’s not going to do that for you, whatever level you’re at, it doesn’t help.

DREAM was waiting and screwing around, and I was trying to figure out whether or not the tournament was going to be shown in America on HDNet. They finally agreed to a deal like three days before the event, and I thought “that’s just stupid, they should have had this stuff done a long time ago.” The way that they’re running the organization, it just wasn’t going to be any good for me in trying to get my brand out there.

Do you think you’ll still try to deal with DREAM? Their fight-booking process seems disorganized at times, to say the least.
I would have gone back to them, but somebody sent me a link to a story in the Japanese press where they said I was a liar and that I agreed to do the tournament but backed out. I’m not going to work with someone who’s going to call me a liar. It’s not gonna happen.