Dana White Reacts To Woodley vs. ‘Wonderboy’ Scores
It wasn’t the most crowd-pleasing bout in UFC history, but welterweight champion Tyron Woodley retained his title over Stephen Thompson in a heavily questioned majority decision result in the main event of last night’s (Sat., March 4, 2017) UFC 209 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
After the fight’s results were announced, fans and media members began to discuss the result, with many unsure how Woodley could win a decision while mostly moving backwards and throwing little volume while doing so for at least three rounds. UFC President Dana White agrees with them, as he told FOX Sports after the fight he had it scored in favor of ‘Wonderboy’:
“I had it 3-2. ‘Wonderboy.'”
When asked if he thought the fight might turn out to be another draw when the strange scores once again came up, White clarified the thought had never crossed his mind. He noted that one of the cageside judges scored the fifth and final round, where Woodley did do some heavy damage to Thompson, a dominant 10-8 for the champ, something White found to be ludicrous:
“I didn’t think it was gonna be a draw; I mean, from the fight that I watched, I had it 3-2 ‘Wonderboy,’ and one of the judges scored the last round 10-8, which is insane.”
But regardless of how he felt the fight should have been scored, White had to accept that Woodley won no matter what, and the fans will have to as well. Typically vague with the direction of the UFC’s plans for the deep welterweight division, White only confirmed that the win, which was Woodley’s first official defense, didn’t help his case too much:
“Tyron’s the champ, he won tonight. But you know, listen, me, the fans, everybody else – we’re not judges. The judges called him the winner tonight so he’s the winner. So we’ll see where we go from here. Listen, this fight didn’t help his case in any way, shape, or form. But I don’t know, we’ll see what happens from here.”