Tyron Woodley has let go of the notion of needing to defeat Geogres St-Pierre to become the greatest welterweight fighter of all-time.
UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley had it in his mind that going through Georges St-Pierre would automatically make him the best 170-pound fighter of all-time. But after his successful title defense against Darren Till on Saturday night, “The Chosen One” has let go of this idea.
“I told myself that I had to beat him to be the greatest, but I don’t,” Woodley said during his post-fight press media scrum (via MMA Fighting). “This sport is different. These guys are better. They’re more well-rounded, they punch harder, they’re faster. And they’ve been training at a younger age. It’s not the wrestler that just learned how to punch.
“Everybody can do everything now, so I think the fact that I’ve been able to beat the last specialists in the game, beat the up-and-coming rising star, beat Robbie Lawler, who’s one of the most vicious fighters we’ve ever seen with two title fights that I think are probably in the top 10 of title fights of all time.”
“It don’t take much more for me to solidify that spot. But if [GSP] wants to fight me, of course I’m gonna fight Georges St-Pierre. I just don’t think he has to, I don’t think he has any interest in it and I’m kind of over it at this point.”
Woodley admits that he was enticed by the idea of fighting someone of St-Pierre’s caliber, but he somehow feels that the desire is not mutual.
“It’s always appealed to me, but I’m not gonna keep calling out a guy that’s already had nine title defenses, ran over the division. He stepped away from the sport, he came back, he made it very obvious that he wanted to fight certain types of fights and it didn’t look like he wanted to fight me.”
Woodley defended his title for the third consecutive time by stopping Till via submission in the second round of their headliner fight at UFC 228 in Dallas, Texas. According to UFC president Dana White, he will be facing Colby Covington, next.