A guy who allegedly went to high school with Robbie Lawler took to Reddit yesterday to share some photos and memories he has of Robbie Lawler during high school.
one time we went to a rival high school's keg party. He walked into the party punched a dude in the face and walked out with the keg on his shoulder. True story.
I played football with Robbie in hs. Went to watch him fight at a few bowling alleys in Iowa. We used to circle up our cars in parking lots on weekends and dudes would fight in the middle. Saw Robbie do this once. The original Miletich gym was in a racquet ball court at a gym. I used to see all those old school dudes there. Saw Robbies first fights in Iowa and then on UFC, been a believer ever since. After he graduated hs he used to come back to the hs gym to work out with the football team. He used to do pushups with fists on the cement like he was fighting the ground, it was scary as fuck to watch. I have a lot of Robbie from high school stories.
Some other stuff I remember is he would come to school wearing nothing but jean overalls hahahah. No shirt or anything. And he was huge back then already. I was his partner on some lab project or something, he just flat out said I'm not doing shit. He was super nice about it though. He did not give a shit about school. On his last day of his senior year we were on some nature trip for a class or something. We just stayed on the school bus and took naps. I was like "don't you want to be hanging out with everyone back at school since its your last day?" He said "What you want a fucking parade or some shit?" hahahah
We played for the high school state championship football game at the Unidome. He was Defensive end. During 3rd downs when we needed to make a stop he would run all up and down the line fucking punching us in the helmets to get us fired up. It sucked.After high school i would pretty much only run into him at the gym. I worked out at the miletich gym too. He would always be super chill and nice. We would sometimes workout together and share workout things. If you guys are into this I can keep talking or answer questions.
there are a lot of awesome stories from the entire Miletich crew in the early UFC days. They used to drive all over the underground midwest fighting circuit and just fuck people up. There was one barn fight where the miletich crew were the underdogs against some other gym. One by one the miletich guys just steamrolled the matches. Pulver and Hughes and all of them. Everyone was betting on the other guys so people started getting pretty upset. The last fight was hughes. I forgot who the dude that managed them was, but he told everyone to get ready to jump in the car after the last fight. So sure enough Hughes goes in and just demolishes the dude and immediately stood up and they all ran into the car and peaced the fuck out. Even before those days Miletich used to go to pool halls just to get into fights with dudes for practice i guess.
I wouldn't call him a bully, he just liked to fight and would take any opportunity to do it. He was not dumb either, just did not give a shit about school. We were lab partners and he definitely did not care at all. A couple of times he stood up for kids getting picked on and fucked up some actual dick head bullies.
Yeah back then while MMA was just coming to life there would be all sorts of unsanctioned barroom promotions. MMA was huge in bettendorf because of Miletich. So there would be all these underground promotions put together in bars or bowling alleys or wherever. I don't know if they still do it that way but those were Robbie's first rights. And he destroyed people. He was only like 18 then fighting in bars and shit. We couldn't go watch him fight in bars bc we weren't 21, but we could go to the bowling alleys.
[asked if he was freakishly strong]:
don't remember exactly, but yes FREAKish strong. Even Pat Miletich would always talk about not wanting to spar with Lawler.
If you look at his right bicep you notice its kinda fucked up. That is because he tore the bicep muscle completely off while he was bowling once.
no he didn't really give a shit about girls. Plus he started dating the girl he is now married to. But he did get into fights, mostly just because he wanted to fight though. We used to go to a place called Middle Park at night on the weekends. We would circle up our cars and put on the headlights like you would see in some movie. Then dudes would fight and we would all watch and drink and shit. Cops would come break it up and we would all run. I watched robbie basically bare knuckle box a dude once like that.
oh dude he was a monster. Pat used to bring hughes and those dudes to the bett high school wrestling practice to look for talent. That is how Robbie got in the mix.
another thing i just remembered is that his dad had built him this like, punching contraption. Where it had spring resistance from behind his back. So you would be watching tv or whatever and he would be punching the air with these spring things.
one time we went to a rival high school's keg party. He walked into the party punched a dude in the face and walked out with the keg on his shoulder. True story.
I played football with Robbie in hs. Went to watch him fight at a few bowling alleys in Iowa. We used to circle up our cars in parking lots on weekends and dudes would fight in the middle. Saw Robbie do this once. The original Miletich gym was in a racquet ball court at a gym. I used to see all those old school dudes there. Saw Robbies first fights in Iowa and then on UFC, been a believer ever since. After he graduated hs he used to come back to the hs gym to work out with the football team. He used to do pushups with fists on the cement like he was fighting the ground, it was scary as fuck to watch. I have a lot of Robbie from high school stories.
Some other stuff I remember is he would come to school wearing nothing but jean overalls hahahah. No shirt or anything. And he was huge back then already. I was his partner on some lab project or something, he just flat out said I'm not doing shit. He was super nice about it though. He did not give a shit about school. On his last day of his senior year we were on some nature trip for a class or something. We just stayed on the school bus and took naps. I was like "don't you want to be hanging out with everyone back at school since its your last day?" He said "What you want a fucking parade or some shit?" hahahah
We played for the high school state championship football game at the Unidome. He was Defensive end. During 3rd downs when we needed to make a stop he would run all up and down the line fucking punching us in the helmets to get us fired up. It sucked.After high school i would pretty much only run into him at the gym. I worked out at the miletich gym too. He would always be super chill and nice. We would sometimes workout together and share workout things. If you guys are into this I can keep talking or answer questions.
there are a lot of awesome stories from the entire Miletich crew in the early UFC days. They used to drive all over the underground midwest fighting circuit and just fuck people up. There was one barn fight where the miletich crew were the underdogs against some other gym. One by one the miletich guys just steamrolled the matches. Pulver and Hughes and all of them. Everyone was betting on the other guys so people started getting pretty upset. The last fight was hughes. I forgot who the dude that managed them was, but he told everyone to get ready to jump in the car after the last fight. So sure enough Hughes goes in and just demolishes the dude and immediately stood up and they all ran into the car and peaced the fuck out. Even before those days Miletich used to go to pool halls just to get into fights with dudes for practice i guess.
I wouldn't call him a bully, he just liked to fight and would take any opportunity to do it. He was not dumb either, just did not give a shit about school. We were lab partners and he definitely did not care at all. A couple of times he stood up for kids getting picked on and fucked up some actual dick head bullies.
Yeah back then while MMA was just coming to life there would be all sorts of unsanctioned barroom promotions. MMA was huge in bettendorf because of Miletich. So there would be all these underground promotions put together in bars or bowling alleys or wherever. I don't know if they still do it that way but those were Robbie's first rights. And he destroyed people. He was only like 18 then fighting in bars and shit. We couldn't go watch him fight in bars bc we weren't 21, but we could go to the bowling alleys.
[asked if he was freakishly strong]:
don't remember exactly, but yes FREAKish strong. Even Pat Miletich would always talk about not wanting to spar with Lawler.
If you look at his right bicep you notice its kinda fucked up. That is because he tore the bicep muscle completely off while he was bowling once.
no he didn't really give a shit about girls. Plus he started dating the girl he is now married to. But he did get into fights, mostly just because he wanted to fight though. We used to go to a place called Middle Park at night on the weekends. We would circle up our cars and put on the headlights like you would see in some movie. Then dudes would fight and we would all watch and drink and shit. Cops would come break it up and we would all run. I watched robbie basically bare knuckle box a dude once like that.
oh dude he was a monster. Pat used to bring hughes and those dudes to the bett high school wrestling practice to look for talent. That is how Robbie got in the mix.
another thing i just remembered is that his dad had built him this like, punching contraption. Where it had spring resistance from behind his back. So you would be watching tv or whatever and he would be punching the air with these spring things.
