Dana White was not in the mood to mince words after UFC 174.
The UFC president skipped out on the post-fight press conference at Rogers Arena in Vancouver on Saturday night, instead putting it in the hands of UFC Canada boss Tom Wright.
But he did make time for an interview with MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani, and let’s just say he wasn’t too happy with Tyron Woodley’s performance against Rory MacDonald.
“He choked in the big fight tonight,” White said. “He needed to come out and try to rip that head off in the third round and he didn’t even do that. He threw a few punches, missed and didn’t knock him out. He just sort of sat back into the way he fought the rest of the fight.”
Woodley forced his way into the welterweight picture by asking for a big fight and scoring a TKO win over Carlos Condit at UFC 171 when he got that opportunity. Saturday’s fight against MacDonald was a chance to vault into the title picture.
Instead, Woodley looked tentative against MacDonald, freezing the way Jake Ellenberger did against MacDonald a year ago. Adding insult to injury, MacDonald took down Woodley, a former wrestler, in the final round.
“He got beat tonight,” White said. “He got beat mentally. He got beat physically. Tyron’s got a ways to go. He seems like he chokes in the big fights.”
While MacDonald was impressive in his unanimous-decision win, it wasn’t enough to get him to jump the line for a welterweight title shot. White reaffirmed in his interview that the winner of the Robbie Lawler vs. Matt Brown fight on July 26 will get the next shot at Johny Hendricks‘ belt.