Tyron Woodley reacts to the possibility of him defending his title against Colby Covington.
Colby Covington has not been shy about his intentions to fight Tyron Woodley for the UFC welterweight title. And so far, he has been going about his campaign like many in the UFC attempt when calling for a title shot: trash talk.
Woodley, for his part, has not been too reactive to Covington until Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour. First, he criticized Colby’s methods of self-marketing.
“When you’ve got a person who, he had 5,000 followers until he disrespected an entire country, he doesn’t quite put himself on that same radar,” Woodley said (via MMA Fighting). “When you’ve got a person who fabricates and makes up stories — Chael Sonnen was good at it, Michael Bisping is good at it, Conor McGregor is the best at it. If you’re going to go that road, at least sound right. Don’t, on one hand, be (saying), ‘I’m this tough guy,’ and your script sounds stupid.”
“Fans want to see blood and knockouts. They don’t want to see some guy just take somebody down over and over again. So I just find it really corny. And yeah, it’s worked, he talked himself into the Demian Maia and Dong Hyun Kim (fights), two guys I (beat). I wrote the book on Maia; he went out and checked it out at the library. Checked the book out, read it, and went out there and got bloodied by a jiu-jitsu guy.
“Now he thinks he’s going to fight for a title. Sit down somewhere. He’s embarrassing himself.”
Woodley also chimed on the scuffle between Covington and Fabricio Werdum in Sydney last week, and for him, harsher punishments should be imposed.
“He should be kicked out of the UFC. Make that the headline,” Woodley said. “Tyron Woodley says Colby Covington should be kicked out of the UFC for pressing charges for somebody air tossing a boomerang in a plastic bag at his shoulder.”
As for a possible fight against Covington, Woodley simply gave the younger fighter the old “be careful what you wish for” advice.
“He’s doing what he feels he needs to do to try to get (a title shot), but I’m telling you, sometimes people ask for something and it’s something that they don’t want,” Woodley said. “If he actually gets himself in position to be across the Octagon with me — one, two, three, whatever fights it takes him to get there — I promise you that it’s not going to end well for him. He’s never going to fight again.”