Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC
Tyron Woodley has never been Dana White’s favorite fighter, but now UFC’s president is saying ‘The Chosen One’ is the most difficult fighter to deal with on the roster.
Tyron Woodley continues to come up in Dana White’s conversations … and not in a good way.
The last time Woodley fought was a four round blanking and technical knockout injury loss (details) to Colby Covington in late September. After that performance (his third loss in a row and third fight without a single round won in the eyes of the judges), White made it clear that he thought Woodley’s time had come and gone. When Diego Sanchez lost at UFC 253 the weekend after, White demurred on the idea of forcing him out because it wasn’t a “Woodley situation” where Diego had lost a bunch of fights in a row.
It’s never good to be used as a meter stick for these kinds of things.
And now White is once again bringing up Woodley … as the hardest fighter he’s ever had to deal with.
“I would say the hardest kid that I ever dealt with, and everybody thinks that I don’t like him, it has to be [Tyron] Woodley,” White told Virgin Radio. “Woodley’s the hardest kid I’ve ever dealt with. I look at what he could have done and what he should have done.
“Good looking kid, physique, the whole thing, becomes a world champion, has that knockout power, has all the tools and everything else, but it’s just always pulling teeth with him and it’s always about something else other than the fight,” he concluded.
With three losses in a row, there are questions on whether UFC will even bring Woodley back for another fight. But, as far as Woodley’s concerned, he’s going to keep on trucking.
“I’m not retiring, I’m not giving it up,” he said in an Instagram Live video following the Covington loss. “I’m not switching all my coaches up, I’m not changing the continent I live on. I’m not doing all that. Some shit didn’t happen, and guess what? I don’t know why it didn’t happen. I did everything to make it happen, and now we just take a deep breath and see what’s next.”
As they say, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing expecting different results. Woodley has looked extremely gun-shy for years now, but managed to land a few big right hands when he needed to. Now that fighters have learned to avoid that, he’ll need to figure out something new to get competitive.
Has the sun set on “The Chosen One” or can Woodley rebuild and work his way back up the rankings?