Welterweight champion Tyron Woodley has always seemed to have an up-and-down relationship with the UFC and promotional president Dana White, but recently, the tension has seemed to heighten.
In an interview with ESPN last week, Woodley said that he believes his next fight could take place against Nate Diaz to which White responded by saying “The Chosen One” was ‘full of s*it’ on an episode of UFC Tonight.
And today (Feb. 12, 2018), Woodley said on The MMA Hour that he was ‘pissed off’ by White’s comments:
“I was really pissed off,” Woodley said. … “I could see if it was a situation that I literally just made up.”
Continuing on, Woodley said that he feels as if UFC champions, specifically himself, haven’t been treated correctly and he certainly has ‘issues with that’:
“That’s a little bit harsh, a little bit hardcore for somebody who is wearing the belt of your organization, that people and young fighters aspire to enter the UFC, they aspire to be UFC champion,” Woodley said. “I don’t think many people are going to aspire to be the champion when they see how champions are treated. And they see that the non-champions and the people that are unprofessional — middle-finger flicking, shit talking — they’re actually making the money.
“So what kind of picture are we trying to put out? I thought we were going in the direction to be parallel with the NFL, NHL, MLB and the other professional sports. It’s a circus until it comes to Tyron and now we want to go back to the old-school rubric. I got issues with that.”
Woodley also feels as if the ‘one-sided bashing’ was a bit unfair given the fact that Diaz has also spoken on the potential fight himself:
“I just didn’t think that was right,” Woodley said. “I think even if he thought that way, it could have been said a different way. I think a lot of people spun what I was saying. Never said this fight was in negotiations. Never said any of those things. Then when Nate came out, I never heard anybody say how full of shit Nate was. It’s so funny it was a one-sided bashing.”
Ultimately, Woodley doesn’t seem to be too pleased with the state of the UFC and perhaps the state of mixed martial arts. The 170-pound champion even went as far as to say that ‘there’s no sport anymore’:
“There’s no sport anymore, so quit playing with me when you guys want to act like this is a sport,” Woodley said. “And people want to [say], ‘Oh, Tyron is such a complainer.’ It’s so much negativity. Use that energy to talk about something positive.”
What do you make of Woodley’s comments?
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