Woodley is open to defending his welterweight title against McGregor in his hometown of Dublin, Ireland.
While Tyron Woodley was busy preparing for his championship bout against Stephen Thompson at UFC 205, the welterweight champion almost got lured into a back-and-forth with Conor McGregor at the weigh-ins.
Woodley, 34, managed to stay focused on the task at hand and retained his WW title when he fought ‘Wonderboy’ to a draw in the co-main event.
Now, over one month on, ‘T-Wood’ can focus his efforts on McGregor and said he is more than open to a championship fight in ‘The Notorious’s’ backyard of Dublin, Ireland.
“So if you want to get in there with a lion and get your head bit off and have me spewing your blood all over the octagon while you’ve got that goofy tiger tattoo on your chest, looking like a clown with a clown on your chest, we can do it,” Woodley said in a YouTube video log (h/t Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting).
“We can do it in Ireland, Dublin, we can do it in the back of White Castle, I don’t care. But just know, I ain’t that guy. I don’t like to try and act overly hood or overly ghetto, a million hood stripes, but where I’m from you don’t call me a bitch, number one. Number two, you don’t fake like you’re about that life. If you want to scrap, if you want to make this money, let’s do it. If you don’t, shut your mouth. Just do your thing.”
McGregor, a proud representative of SBG Ireland, has expressed his desire to fight at Dublin’s Croke Park, but the UFC face a plethora of issues in getting the arena booked for a PPV event – mainly the timezone and unpredictability of the Irish weather.
McGregor became the first UFC fighter to hold two belts at the same time when he TKO’d Eddie Alvarez to win the lightweight title last month. The 28-year-old knocked out Jose Aldo in thirteen seconds to capture featherweight gold at UFC 194 but was stripped of the belt shortly after his historic win over Alvarez at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Woodley, who has also called for a fight with Nick Diaz at UFC 209, is expected to face Thompson in an immediate rematch, but money talks. A welterweight championship epic with McGregor would be one of the UFC’s biggest fights of 2017.