Carlos Condit Believes Tyron Woodley Could Turn It On, But Doesn’t
After successfully defending his title against grappling guru Demian Maia at UFC 214 this past July, welterweight champion Tyron Woodley received quite a bit of criticism, including from UFC President Dana White, due to many feeling the fight was boring.
Former Woodley foe and former interim 170-pound champion Carlos Condit, who will make his return against Neil Magny at UFC 219 on Dec. 30, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada, recently said that he can see where Woodley’s critics are coming from:
“I can definitely see where the critics are coming from,” Condit said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “We’re athletes but we’re also entertainers, people buy the pay-per-view to be entertained. That’s part of this. This is show business. I know that winning is super important and a gameplan is super important, but at some point you have to, this is the hurt business and you gotta to try to put your opponent out.”
Condit, who’s known for being an exciting fighter and a finisher, feels as if Woodley could’ve ‘turned it on’ against Maia and went for the finish:
“You know he’s obviously a super, super talented dude,” Condit said. “I did watch the last fight against Maia. I felt like he at a time where he could he really could have turned it on and tried to finish, he didn’t.”
Condit, who could very well still be one of the best welterweights in the world, hasn’t competed since being submitted by Maia in August 2016. He’s lost two of his last three as well, with one of those losses coming via injury to Woodley.
While a rematch between him and Woodley could certainly take place in the future, “The Natural Born Killer” seems to be taking his return to the Octagon slowly:
“I don’t I don’t really think about it all that much. I’m really looking at small, incremental things right now. That’s big picture, but for now it’s really just getting back in fight shape, getting firing on all cylinders, getting my weapons sharp again, that’s my thought process and my priority,” Condit said.
Do you expect Condit to make another return?
