Imagine a guy.
He is well-educated. Went to the University of Missouri, in fact.
He is articulate, a reflection of that education, and he has done well as a television personality—even actor.
He has a respectable social conscience.
He is a great athlete; he excelled as a college wrestler and a mixed martial artist and collected titles in the biggest promotions in the world.
Got an idea in your head about that guy and what he is all about? Thinking he’s probably pretty likable, a man basking in positive vibes wherever he goes?
Think again. You’ve got UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, and people seem to hate Tyron Woodley.
Going into his third title defense, Woodley is openly disdained in a way few other UFC champions are.
Michael Bisping isn’t beloved, but there is an impishness to him that feels kind of tongue-in-cheek and softens the blow when it comes to people disliking him.
Demetrious Johnson and Jon Jones are divisive, as is Conor McGregor, but none of them are as flatly and unanimously loathed by the fanbase in the way Woodley is.
And when you consider him objectively, it’s kind of puzzling. He seems like a guy people would get behind. It’s only when you dig a little deeper that the dots connect more clearly.
Woodley earned a title shot as dubiously as one could imagine, forging a path to gold built on evasiveness and dispatching some of the most universally adored fighters in MMA along the way.
He beat Carlos Condit by TKO but did it only when Condit blew out his knee and could no longer continue.
He got to the cusp of a title fight after narrowly beating Kelvin Gastelum in a catchweight fight after Gastelum missed weight—no reflection on Woodley—and then spent 18 months inactive, waiting for a title shot.
When he came back, it was against champion Robbie Lawler. He was the most treasured champion in the sport at the time, a fanatically violent man who more or less didn’t know how not to be in a Fight of the Year during his welterweight tear from 2013 to 2016.
Woodley knocked him cold in two minutes flat. Not great for his image, and it only got worse from there.
Woodley took his title win as a chance to act as though he was calling the shots. He demanded fights with Nick Diaz, Georges St-Pierre, Conor McGregor (two retirees and a guy fighting in another weight class) and others, while showing no regard for challengers waiting their turn—including Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, another figure fans have delighted in and one who had won seven straight bouts on the way to earning his shot.
Yet Woodley held fast in pursuit of his “money fight” and even took to lobbing insults at Thompson while refusing the contest. He eventually relented, but only when the pairing was placed on the lucrative UFC 205 card.
No one can blame him for wanting to get paid, but lots of people can blame him for how he went about it. It’s hard to take to a guy who delays or refuses fights, points fingers along the way and then restarts the whole process the minute he leaves the cage.
Most recently, the process restarted with Demian Maia, whom Woodley will battle Saturday at UFC 214. He showed little interest in Maia as an opponent, citing a desire to chase paydays instead.
Some felt the real concern was Maia, a jiu-jitsu specialist so specialized that the word “specialist” is almost insulting, has a penchant for beating people badly and making them look even worse as he does.
With Woodley’s tendency to fight with his back against the cage, he’s almost tailor-made to fall victim to Maia’s smothering mauling. And if he did, he would lose whatever leverage he has in navigating the MMA landscape or negotiating with the UFC.
So it’s kind of easy to see why people seem to hate Woodley so much. He’s done a lot of irritating things to overshadow the many positives he offers, and he’s always quick to take his stance and go in hard on anyone who isn’t standing with him.
It’s unfortunately paradoxical: The harder he goes in, the harder people hate on him.
You probably don’t need to tell Woodley, though—he’s been hearing it for years, and it looks like it’s going to be around for as long as he’s champion.
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