I talked about "Mo" Lawal months ago in relation to him being the next big prospect in MMA and now he's ready to make the jump into the deep end of the MMA pool:

Travis Wiuff confirmed to MMAWeekly.com that his new opponent for the upcoming Sengoku 5 event in Tokyo this weekend will be recent Team Quest (Murrieta) acquisition Muhammad "Mo" Lawal.

Lawal has an impressive freestyle amateur wrestling background, with accolades including the 2002 NCAA Division II National Championship, and First Place finishes at the 2006 U.S. Open and 2007 Pan-American Games.

Most recently the native Coloradan finished second at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, just missing out on an opportunity to compete in recent Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

This will be Mo’s first MMA bout, as he joins Team Quest (Gresham) lightweight Ryan "The Lion" Schultz on the card.

It's hard to guage how this fight will go given that all we know of Lawal is he is a phenomenal wrestler and exceptional athlete. Still, though, you have to think Team Quest would exercise some discretion and wouldn't accept this fight unless they thought Lawal had a decent chance at winning. Wuiff isn't the wrestler Lawal is, but does have enough stand-up skills and fights under his belt to give neophytes a tough test. But if Team Quest is good at anything, it's converting top-level wrestlers into top-level MMA fighters. Exciting news all the way around.