Stephen Thompson Discusses Potential Bouts With Masvidal & Lawler

Stephen Thompson isn’t opposed to bouts with Jorge Masvidal and Robbie Lawler.

Thompson is coming off a majority decision loss to Tyron Woodley back in March. It was just the second loss of Thompson’s professional mixed martial arts career. “Wonderboy” has been recovering from an injury and hopes to return in November.

Speaking to BJPenn.com, Thompson said he wants to throw leather at UFC 217:

“Yea, so I got cleared. You know the doctors said I was good on Wednesday. So now I am getting back into the swing of things. I am training again, so I think I should be ready to go in November. That is the plan. I know that me and (Jorge) Masvidal verbally said that we would fight. I haven’t heard nothing from the UFC yet. So hopefully they will jump on board and want to make that fight happen. You know I’ve been out for 5 or 6 months now. It seems like I’ve been out forever man. I am just itching to get back out there and do it again. So hopefully the UFC will jump on board and want to get us on the [UFC 217] card. That is the plan anyway.”

He then mentioned Lawler and how he’s also intrigued by that fight.

“I wouldn’t mind that at all [a fight with Lawler] to be honest with you. I would love to fight Lawler. That is who I was planning on fighting before I got matched up with Tyron. Robbie defended the title the most times since Georges St-Pierre. At one point I was really focused on fighting Lawler so it would be really cool to actually step out in the octagon with him. With that said, I did tell Masvidal I would fight him. We verbally agreed to that so I don’t want to go back on that. Plus, from what I’m hearing Robbie is likely to be fighting for the title next, which he deserves, so right now I have Masvidal on my mind man.”