UFC Welterweight Champion Tyron Woodley just finished taking care of one of the biggest challenges in his career against grappling ace Demian Maia. His victory was thorough and dominant, but you wouldn’t believe it, if you heard what UFC President Dana White had to say about it.
Woodley took a safe and cautious approach to handling Maia, due to the dangerous grappler’s stellar ground game. But he did what he had to do to win. White however wasn’t too thrilled about how “The Chosen One” approached the fight.
Before the fight, Woodley was promised a megabout against returning welterweight legend Georges St-Pierre. Minutes after Woodley’s victory over Maia, White announced the GSP fight was going to Michael Bisping.
“You ask fans if they want to see Woodley fight again, I think that will be a flat out no,” said White.
Those are pretty strong words coming from a promoter. And Woodley has every reason to be irked.
Woodley responds to Dana White
As expected, the champ was pretty pissed off about what his promoter had to say about his performance. Woodley didn’t hold back, and now, he’s demanding an apology.
“I don’t care so much about the fans, but when your job title is promoter, promote your f*cking fighters. Promote your champion. Don’t demote your champion. I threw my shoulder out in the first round, I wasn’t able to throw any damaging shots — for you guys who don’t understand what a labrum tear is, go get on Google or Wikipedia and figure it out — and I still stayed the course, I stayed on path, I stayed on point, I executed the gameplan. I had to reduce all of my shots from overhands, uppercuts, things that were hurting my shoulder, to straight punches.”
“So, sorry in advance, I’m mad because I’ve had this surgery before. It’s not a fun one. It’s not a quick recovery. It’s not something that I’m excited about. I’m going to get a couple second opinions. Literally I’m in the Uber right now, I just f*cking got out of the doctors office, like right this second. There’s paperwork in my hand. So I’m just, I’m owed a public apology. You’re going to publicly scrutinize me, Dana White? You publicly need to apologize to me.
“I’ve done nothing but good stuff for the sport. I’ve done nothing but be a good model for the f*cking organization. I go out there and I fight with integrity. I covered your sport from the FOX desk a week before my fight. I always uphold my responsibilities to the organization. It’s timeout for that. The word behind ‘business’ is ‘man.’ You need to be a man, you owe me a public apology. And if I don’t get that, I’m going to start leaking some sh*t that people don’t want to be out in the wind. I’m not even kidding about that.”
How did things actually go down?
So what do fans think about it? Do you buy Woodley’s story? Or do you feel he could have taken more risks to entertain against Maia? Is he a generally entertaining fighter? Let us know.
As for Woodley, it appears he is on the verge of spilling the beans on the UFC’s biggest secrets.
“They know what I’m referring to. I’m due a public apology,” he said. “I better get it.”
