Robbie Lawler makes no excuse for loss: 'He caught me with that ol' T-Wood bomb'

Robbie Lawler had to know the question was coming.

After losing his UFC welterweight title to Tyron Woodley via first-round knockout on Saturday night at UFC 201, the idea that all those minutes logged in the Octagon engaging in Fight of the Year-caliber brawls with the fiercest competitors his division had to offer had finally caught up to him came front and center.

But Lawler remains as no-nonsense as always. And the way he sees it, he simply got caught by a fighter who has long been well-known for hitting hard.

"He caught me with the ol' T-Wood bomb," Lawler said during the post-fight press conference at Philips Arena. "I think it's just a guy who took advantage of a big punch and rocked me and jumped on and finished the job."

As a teammate of Woodley at American Top Team, Lawler had an idea about Woodley's tendencies, and he feels he could have better handled the fight-ending sequence, in which Woodley first feinted, then followed through with a wicked right hand.

"He threw a jab, and I went to parry the jab, and obviously in hindsight you wouldn't want to do that," Lawler said. "Maybe you would want to circle over to the other way and then be further away too and maybe he wouldn't have touched me with his right hand. There's a whole bunch of stuff I could have done and didn't."

But Lawler's just not going to buy the idea that this means his run which, which included memorable scraps with Johny Hendricks, Matt Brown, Rory MacDonald, and Carlos Condit, is permanently done.

"I'm not going to speculate," Lawler said. "I felt great going into the fight, so, no excuses."