Six Reasons Tyron Woodley Has Fans Scratching Their Heads

On November 12, 2016, on one of the most historic cards ever put together, Tyron ‘The Chosen One’ Woodley and Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson fought to a majority draw in the co-main event of UFC 205 from Madison Square Garden in New York, New York.

The outcome resulted in UFC boss Dana White booking a rematch during the post-fight press conference, something which is rarely done by the promotion. This sealed the deal in the minds of many fans despite the fact that Woodley seemed to have little-to-no interest in the fight.

Over the ensuing weeks, as the projected date of the rematch at last weekend’s (March 4, 2017) UFC 209 began to creep up, Woodley began publicly calling for fights with the likes of three-year retired former welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, middleweight champion Michael Bisping, and a newly reinstated Nick Diaz.

This was interesting, questionable and off-putting to a large portion of the UFC’s fan base especially given White’s previous comments concerning the need for a rematch. The events and the fanbase’s frustration all culminated when Thompson tweeted a picture of his signed bout agreement captioned, “Waiting on you @TWoodley.”

Woodley responded in a manner which was surprising to many by calling ‘Wonderboy’ “overly entitled and delusional.” He also implied and later clarified accusations of racism saying, “I can’t allow myself to lose to him and what he stands for and what his fans stand for” during The Morning Wood podcast – referring to Thompson and his fans.

To those that follow the athletes involved, this was called odd and borderline hypocritical rhetoric by the 170-pound champ; especially given his road to the title and the ideas he had about defending it. He then followed it up with a worst-case scenario by controversially beating Thompson in one of the worst title bouts in MMA history at UFC 209 last weekend.

In the spirit of, and with respect to these statements, we  take a look at six perplexing and near paradoxical situations that Woodley found himself a part of throughout the bouts leading to and during his reign as welterweight king.

6) Boycott for a Title Shot

On January 31st of 2015, Woodley was looking to win a second consecutive fight after finishing Dong Hyun Kim via first-round KO. His opponent would be Kelvin Gastelum and, after a close fight, the judges awarded the victory to Woodley in the form of a split decision.

Granted, in the Gastelum fight Woodley did suffer a broken foot which required a sit on the sidelines, but pulled no punches as to why and when he would sign another contract saying “No strap, no scrap” during an interview with CBS Sports.

The total fight-to-fight wait lasted from January 31, 2015 until July 30, 2016 – the last year of which saw Woodley healthy and simply biding his time for the right opponent.

It’s up to no man to determine how another man goes about his business. But if you’re planning to make a stand on the self-perceived entitlement of others, it could arguably behoove you not to spend a year-and-a-half waiting for the opponent you specifically want…or feel entitled to.

5) Money Fights, Regardless of Rankings:

In Woodley’s return to the cage, and after seeing his sit on the sidelines pay off, he fulfilled his dreams of becoming the world welterweight champion by starching defending champion Robbie Lawler in the very first round of their July 30, 2016 bout.

After winning the fight he’d been preparing for his entire life and putting on the most stunning performance of his entire career, Woodley left many scratching their heads when he suggested that number one contender Thompson fight Robbie Lawler while calling out Georges St Pierre (who last fought November 2013) and Nick Diaz (who had no wins since October 2011).

To say the least, the “money fight” mantra combined with such an abstract call-out list left a sour taste in many fans’ mouths and put a chip on Thompson’s shoulder.

4) Rematch/ Referee Reality Check

Despite Woodley’s wishes and media efforts November ushered in the much awaited Madison Square Garden debut of the UFC as well as the first defense of Woodley’s championship.

The fan’s contempt for Woodley (as an apparent result of his post UFC 201 call-outs) manifested itself during the pre-fight festivities in MSG as chants of “Wonderboy” came after Woodley asked the crowd “Who got my back?”

As for the fight itself, Thompson out-pointed Woodley in rounds two, three, and five while Woodley dominated Thompson in rounds one and four. The resulting score was the one most statistically unlikely to be reached in combat sports, a majority draw. This decision led to a seemingly general agreement among media, fans, and White that a rematch should be held, which White confirmed during the post-fight press conference.

This issue seemed to lay relatively quiet in the anticipation of Ronda Rousey‘s much-awaited return to the cage on December 30, 2016. That is until the ‘Wonderboy’ took to Twitter on January 8th and attached a picture of his signed bout agreement. The ensuing social media, radio, TV and podcast opportunities found Woodley refuting the decision, saying “You mean to tell me out of those three close rounds I did not win one of those rounds?” to Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour.

He would later go on to point out the lack of experience that New York judges had scoring MMA contests. Along with the desire to sign a “money fight”, Woodley used his opinions of what he saw as an erred decision to justify his annoyance with the idea of a rematch with Thompson.

However, that perception may lie with Woodley or maybe his fans. Woodley beat Thompson by questionable decision at last weekend’s UFC 209 

3) The Race Card and Entitlement Agenda

In a move that was nearly simultaneous to the statements involving his issue with the judge’s decision, Woodley levied charges of racism and entitlement toward fans of the sport, including fans of Thompson in particular and at the very infrastructure of the sport itself:

“So, when someone’s a challenger that parades and charades around as a champion I got a problem with it. I got a problem with you being overly entitled…” Woodley proclaimed on the MMA Hour to which Thompson replied “I signed a contract. We’re just waiting on his signature, waiting for him to man up and do what everybody knows he should do. It seems like he’s calling out everybody but me!”

In a January 23 interview, Woodley went as far as to claim that labels such as “freak athlete” were “subliminally” racist. Woodley expressed his stance that the culture in America was one which he described as “subliminally insensitive” as it pertains to minority groups in the public eye.

Woodley also submitted his belief that question marks concerning his cardiovascular endurance were underhandedly racist. He implied that even the dearly UFC departed Mike Goldberg was not without guilt, bringing into question his between-round comments during Woodley’s fight with Carlos Condit – quoting him on the MMA Hour as saying “Let’s keep an eye on the cardio of Tyron Woodley and the technique of Carlos Condit.” Ironically, Goldberg was the next guest on the show and it never came up.

Perhaps the most personal of the race comments where unsurprisingly hurled in Thompson’s direction when Woodley asserted, “I can’t allow myself to lose to him and what he stands for and what his fans stand for” during The Morning Wood podcast.

Terms like “entitlement” and “racism” must’ve rang odd for the challenger as he was back in his hometown of Simpsonville, South Carolina, the Monday after the fight teaching an ethnically diverse group of kids in his role at the family-owned dojo, Upstate Karate.

No one walks in another man’s shoes or sees what he sees. However, it seems unlikely that scenes like the one that saw him essentially booed off stage in New York stemmed from some organic, subliminally organized racist effort and rather more likely that it was a natural reaction to some of the illogical fight requests made by the newly-crowned champion. 

2) The Parallels of Hypocrisy

With all of the back-and-forth between Woodley and Thompson resulting in one of the sport’s longer-lasting sagas involving a championship, there have been no shortage of media opportunities. Over it all, from his time as a challenger, victor, champion, and would-be matchmaker, Woodley has been more and more active on the microphone.

Over it all he’s contradicted himself more than once, seemingly deepening the divide between the mainstream fanbase and himself. That, in and of itself, is a bit paradoxical and backwards considering it’s those fans Woodley needs to support him to even have a remote chance of getting one of the big money fights he so covets.

The first and most obvious to most was the very idea of feeling the need to sit out for over a year to be named number one contender/ title challenger then immediately looking to overlook a man who sat in the same position that caused his absence.

Previous to this entire scenario and after making statements like “No strap, no scrap,” Woodley went back on himself before UFC 201 saying that he, in fact did not sit out for the title shot.

In addition, throughout the mini press tour he said he didn’t even respect Thompson as a man only to say later on ESPN “I’ve never not respected you” while sitting aside Thompson.

Last, Woodley enjoys repeatedly (and arguably correctly) touting the welterweight division as the toughest in the sport. Him saying this would lend itself to the notion that he fully recognizes and acknowledges the line of tough, validated, worthy and most importantly, active competitors in his division. Even still, his wish is to delay and decrease the opportunities for those top fighters in the class by only showing interest in fights with the likes of retired, uncertain to return, or out of division opponents.

All of these scenarios have developed over the course of the past eight months and have left many casual, mainstream, and hardcore fans alike with many questions about where Woodley really stands as a competitor and champion. There is no doubt whatsoever that he is a highly talented and worthy of the throne, but his intentions as champion are as blurred as ever. After all, Thompson was only the first challenger.

1.) He Didn’t Deliver When It Mattered Most:

At the core of Woodley’s problems connecting with fans is his tendency to deliver hard-hitting fights and then put up an absolute borefest his next time out. He did just that in his controversial majority decision win over Thompson in the main event of last weekend’s UFC 209, a fight he spent the majority of backing up to the cage and doing nothing.

Thankfully for him, Thompson did similarly little, allowing Woodley to score a late fifth-round flurry that dropped “Wonderboy” and almost undoubtedly earned him the decision on the judges’ cards. It certainly didn’t earn him any new fans, but it did give his already substantial base of haters a lot more ammo for their argument.

The fact is “The Chosen One” didn’t deliver – the one thing that defines a high-level fighter and his or her ability to draw pay-per-view numbers and gain fans like a McGregor or Rousey has. He can call for all the ‘money fights’ he wants to, but no one wants to see him in those fights as of this writing. He can blame racism for not getting those fights, and yet even though there may be some truth to it, he isn’t hated by a large amount of MMA fans because he’s black, he’s hated because he acts like he deserves something he hasn’t earned.

Then he went out and participated in one of the worst title fights the octagon has ever witnessed, and the snowball effect turned into a massive avalanche of hate towards Woodley. He’s a supremely talented fighter who can knock any man in his weight class out, but the fact is, right now he’s acting like he deserves everything from everyone while not giving them the one thing that would make those exact souls respect him – exciting fights.

Until he does, fans are still going to wonder why he thinks he’s owed everything with just one lackluster title defense under his belt.