Former welterweight champion Tyron Woodley thinks he deserves another title shot should he defeat Robbie Lawler at UFC Minneapolis.
Woodley, who was thoroughly dominated by Kamaru Usman at UFC 235 in March, feels he deserved an immediate rematch with the new champ. Though he didn’t get that fight, he thinks that should he defeat Lawler again, a title fight is in order.
“I don’t feel like I should have had to have a path [back to the belt],” Woodley said Thursday during his open workout at the Mall of America for his upcoming bout against Lawler, whom he defeated for the title at UFC 201 in 2016 (via ESPN). “I feel like I should have been able to fight [for a title shot].
“The fact that I defended my belt [five times] against true No. 1 contenders — I’m not crying over spilled milk. I know my path is going to be different. But I’m not going to fight two or three fights. I’m going to fight Robbie, and then I’m fighting for the title.”
Honest With Himself?
To his credit, Woodley admitted that he may have had too much going on outside the cage. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty but “The Chosen One” should’ve been more choosy when it came to his extracurricular activities.
“I think we as a team had to be honest with ourselves and say, ‘OK, are there any nights you could have went to sleep?’” Woodley said. “‘Are there any times you could’ve put that phone down and not been on Instagram. Did you have to go to the studio that day, at that time? Was that song you recorded, was that for this album? Could I have waited on those and maybe grabbed that four hours of sleep? Could I have not argued on the phone, yelled or whatever, it stresses me out and now my sparring session was terrible?’
“Those are things I know they’re going to be there, but I have to do a better job of maintaining them. At the end of the day, I just lost.”
The first time these two met back in 2016 it was for the welterweight strap. Woodley flattened Lawler in 2:12 to become the champion. Woodley wants to prove that wasn’t a fluke.
“I feel like he’s the one getting the rematch because of how things happened the first time,” Woodley said. “I just need to fight, I just need a fight.”
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