If you’re fed up of Tyron Woodley’s incessant complaining, we have bad news for you.
Tyron Woodley is the best welterweight on planet Earth, but he is one of the least popular champions on the UFC’s roster.
There are a number of factors that have contributed to fans not getting behind him. Part of the blame falls on the UFC for underpromoting him. Dana White criticising his title defences directly after they happen has an effect on the way people perceive him. Rather than highlight how impressive shutting down specialists like Stephen Thompson and Demian Maia is, White focused on how ‘boring’ these fights were.
However, Woodley is also responsible for his lack of fanfare. Fighting to just win as opposed to trying to get the finish isn’t appreciated as much by modern fans. Nor is he persistently playing the role of the victim, even if it is somewhat justified.
During a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan MMA show, Woodley gave his take on the modern culture in MMA. Unsurprisingly, he isn’t a fan.
“I don’t really even like fighting, to be honest. I’m just good at it. I don’t like the politics behind it, I don’t like the martial arts aspect being taken away from it, I don’t like the disrespect, guys that are not really training hard, they don’t look the part – I think professional athletes should look a certain way. I really don’t like this generation of fighters that watch a move on TV or YouTube and go in and try to do it. They don’t want to drill repetitions. They don’t want to actually put in the work.”
The only fighter’s name he dropped during this tirade was SBG fighter Artem Lobov. “The Russian Hammer” entered into the UFC through the Ultimate Fighter with a 11-10-1-1NC record. Woodley believes Conor McGregor’s influence in this signing is disrespectful to the sport and its competitors.
“It affects me because the sport is also the fans and the fans culture who we get to fight. If the guys who are talking enough shit start wearing fly suits then, in this day and age, that’s good enough for a title shot. That’s disrespectful to everybody that came before. Remember when you had to go 10-0 then you get the ‘call’ from the UFC? If Conor won, Artem Lobov with a 500 record is going to be in the UFC. It’s ways that the sport is taking the love out of it.“
After that harsh swipe at his main sparring partner, Woodley then paid McGregor a compliment. ‘The Chosen One’ praised the Irishman for his abilities behind the mic coupled with his fighter’s mentality. In his eyes, his penchant for backing up the talk sets him apart from the great trash talkers such as Chael Sonnen.
“Chael’s probably better than Conor at it (trash talk). Conor’s very close, but Conor actually delivers on more of what he says he’s going to do than Chael did. If you got to think of anybody who brought both worlds together the best, I would have to say Conor.”
“He knocks a lot of guys out, tries to call the round, he’s only lost a few fights total and even in those fights it was risk/reward. Fighting a guy, switched opponent, this notice, different weight class. He’s taking on risk/reward that if he loses, it’s not really that big of a deal.”
Woodley then went on to criticise McGregor’s lemmings for failing to put in the hard work to deliver on their shit talk. He believes this was one of the keys to McGregor’s unprecedented success.
