Tyron Woodley talks about the injury that rendered him unable to stay on the UFC Minneapolis main event vs. Robbie Lawler.
Next month was supposed to feature former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in a rematch against fellow ex-champion Robbie Lawler, but Woodley was recently forced to withdraw due to his injured right hand.
Woodley has since gone into more detail about his ailments, and it appears they are more serious than first thought. As he told TMZ Sports in a recent interview, several of his joints have been diagnosed with arthritis.
“I have chronic arthritis in my joint right here,” Woodley said as he pointed to his right thumb (transcription via MMA Fighting). “There’s three joints that enable me to grab and grip. One has chronic arthritis and this one has severe arthritis. There’s a few different ways to heal and fix the problem permanently but it’s something you wouldn’t do if you were still active, because it limits your range of motion and grip.
“The temporary fix is to rehab it, get it stronger, get the flexibility to start to grab and grip, then 10 days before the fight let’s try to do a cortisone shot. So, I have the UFC checking on cities and states that accept and allow you to have cortisone shots.”
It should be noted that corticosteroid shots are not banned out of competition, so this shouldn’t be an issue wherever and whenever Woodley fights next.
Woodley (19-4-1) lost his welterweight title by unanimous decision to Kamaru Usman at UFC 235. The defeat ended a run of four consecutive title defenses, having initially won the belt by knocking out Lawler at UFC 201 in July of 2016.
The 37-year-old is targeting UFC 241 on August 17th for his return, although
With Woodley vs. Lawler 2 off the table for now, the UFC has since moved a heavyweight bout between Junior dos Santos and Francis Ngannou from UFC 239 to the UFC Minneapolis main event.