Duke Roufus Doesn’t Believe Tyron Woodley Gets Praise He Deserves

Tyron Woodley was the welterweight champion from July 2016 to March 2019, but is sitting on the sidelines waiting for his next fight.

It seems likely he won’t get an instant rematch, which many champions get. Instead, he will have to work his way back up to the title. With that, his coach in Duke Roufus believes Woodley doesn’t get the praise he deserves for his run as champion.

Especially due to how active he fought and how many times he took fights on short notice, which many champions aren’t willing to do:

“I want to reiterate about Tyron, a lot of people don’t realize, we soldiered through back-to-back-to-back-to-back fights, right out of injury into short training camps,” Roufus said to MMA Fighting.

“A lot of people sometimes don’t give Tyron his due credit. He fought four title fights in 364 days. The only guy to break that record is Jon Jones. Those were back-to-back fights, we were doing six-week training camps for five-round fights, which is kind of an anomaly in our sport.

“Most people want to take a longer training camp for a longer fight and I’m very proud of that body of work that we put together through Woodley, coach Din (Thomas), and myself. He was on just a crazy schedule, so I like this little layoff. It’s helping Tyron grow not only as a fighter, but as a person.

“And I’m proud of him too. You only live once, so I’m happy he’s pursuing music, acting, etc., he’s just a very happy guy right now.”

Although Tyron Woodley asked for the money fights on numerous occasions, he still took on number one contenders like Stephen Thompson and Darren Till. He continuously fought the next man up, and Roufus would like to see more praise come his pupil’s way for doing so.

Do you agree with Roufus that Woodley didn’t receive the credit he deserves for his championship reign?