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Tyron Woodley still believes he is the UFC welterweight champion.
More than a year ago, Tyron Woodley dropped the UFC welterweight belt to Kamaru Usman at UFC 235. He hasn’t fought since, but in his mind, the title never left his side.
Speaking in his own TMZ Sports segment The Hollywood Beatdown, “The Chosen One” explained why he remains to keep such a mindset.
“At this point, I’m willing to fight anybody because at the end of the day everybody’s good, everybody’s tough, and when you’re the champion you don’t get a chance to pick who you fight,” Woodley said (transcript by MMA Fighting).
“Right now I feel like I had a bad night, but I’m still the champion in my mind. I’ve still got the mentality, I’ve still got the skillset, so I’ve got to align where my mind’s at to actually getting back to that belt. So whatever fights get me to that belt, that’s what I’m doing.”
Woodley was planning to settle an old score with Colby Covington, supposedly at UFC 249. But after that plan fell through, he says he is willing to take on whoever is put in front of him.
“I don’t even care at this point,” Woodley he said. “I’m seeking performances. I want to go out and I want to put three or four crazy performances in this year where people are like ‘What the f—k did he do to Tyron? Why did he whoop his ass like that?’ That’s all I’m thinking about, so it really doesn’t matter at this point.”
Woodley is now looking to be part of the May 9th event, which has yet to be finalized. He also says he wants to eventually move up to middleweight and see how good Israel Adesanya really is.