how close he came to switching sports during the height of his Dragons contract saga<\/a>, Lomax told us in May: \u201cAh, that\u2019s a tough one.<\/p>\n\u201cAnd who knows?<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, I\u2019m somebody who likes to test myself as much as I can.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I left my previous club, to test myself and see where my game can go.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I remember (during the contract saga) talking to my family a little bit about things.<\/p>\n
\u201cDifferent scenarios.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was weighing up different options and thinking about where my passions were leaning.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd boxing and MMA is something I love \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Pushed on how close he came, Lomax continued: \u201cFighting\u2019s something I\u2019ve loved so much from a young age.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd something I love so much now because I always feel myself getting better.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like when people are a professional in one sport, then they go and do another one and love it because they feel themselves getting better.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love that, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you never know what the right choice is.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you end up talking to your loved ones and then making your decision based on what you think is right at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eels release Lomax from contract | 00:44<\/p>\n
Eventually, the Eels won out.<\/p>\n
But with Lomax now on the move again, having quit the NRL just one season into a four-year deal, there is now growing talk about a potential fight debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what he wants to do, and I know he has definitely been close a few times,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve spoken about a few things already and I\u2019m actually pushing Zac towards boxing over MMA.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd not because he couldn\u2019t be good at MMA, but there is just so much more to learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why if he does want to have a go, initially, I\u2019d like to see him take a couple of boxing fights and see how he pulls up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen if he wants to go further, he can.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause like I said, the kid is very talented.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as for working out with the UFC crew?<\/p>\n
\u201cZac\u2019s a had a few spars with a few of the boys already,\u201d coach continued. \u201cAnd I know he and Jimmy Crute will also have a spar later this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that will be a good test. Let\u2019s see how things go when big Jimmy is whacking him in the head.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Crute and Micallef, who live and train in Melbourne, have this week driven up to spend some time training with Lopez before Christmas, while Mullarkey has relocated permanently from the Central Coast.<\/p>\n
All three fighters are coming off wins and are now hoping to be part of a blockbuster UFC card slated for Sydney in February, and with Volkanovski tipped as the headline act.<\/p>\n
Asked about Crute specifically, Lopez said: \u201cI really can\u2019t speak highly enough of Jimmy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a while there where he was second guessing himself, but not anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cJimmy Crute has his mojo back. It really reminds me of when he first came into the UFC.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich is so great to see because Jimmy is a great fighter, great guy and trains incredibly hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame with Jonathan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatching him fight, I\u2019ve always been impressed. But now to see him in training as well \u2026 this guy is really going to be one to look out for. He\u2019s going to be a real handful as he gets more experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez also said UFC lightweight Mullarkey is eager to get back in the cage following his September win over Rolando Bedoya.<\/p>\n
\u201cJamie was back in the gym the next week, has been here ever since and is really keen to go again,\u201d the coach said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zac Lomax is sparring UFC fighters to ready for what could be a shock career shakeup – with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-308694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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