Tyron Woodley had his three-year reign as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight king come to an end Saturday night (March 2, 2019) after Kamaru Usman dominated him for five rounds to win the strap at UFC 235 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Though a tough pill to swallow for “The Chosen One,” the defeat didn’t do much to sway his confidence, as he still believes he’s the best fighter to ever compete at 170 pounds. One thing “The Chosen One” wont’ do, though, is find excuses for his sub-par performance.
“I just keep telling my self, you simply lost. I can think of all the movie stuff, all the music stuff, all the people that called me for tickets, think about social media, think about the drama and think about all these things,” said Woodley on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show
“You can do that and I can try to find all these reason why I lost, but I’m going to just say this, I lost. But more importantly I learned.”
After winning the belt in 2016 by knocking out Robbie Lawler at UFC 202, then defending in three times with one draw, Woodley believes his run as division champion should be enough to warrant a shot at running it back against “The Nigerian Nightmare.”
This, despite the fact Dana White has gone on record to say Colby Covington will get the first crack at Usman later this year.
“Do I think I should get the shot over Colby? Hell yeah. For one, Colby was never the champ and he never had the reign I had. He hasn’t fought since ‘RDA.’ He was supposed to fight me in September and he was supposed to fight me in March,” added Woodley.
“This fight was supposed to be his fight. The Till fight was supposed to be his fight and for whatever reason we didn’t come to an agreement and these guys got pulled up instead of him,” he added.
“I will do what I’ve always done, man. We’ve seen how it go the other way when you try to cry over spilled milk. When you try to act like you started the UFC when you didn’t,” referencing Colby’s outbursts after claiming UFC had previously taken his championship fight away.
Should the promotion proceed with Usman vs Covington, Woodley says’ he’ll play it by ear and wait to see what the powers that be at UFC come up with. After all, immediate championship rematches are tough to come by these days.