Tyron Woodley Believes Floyd Mayweather Could Be Successful In UFC
UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley is a strong believer in boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr.
With Mayweather teasing a jump to MMA from the boxing world, there are many who believe that the opponent for Mayweather would be his former rival, soon-to-be-former UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor.
UFC President Dana White has even gone on record by stating that if this fight were to happen then the only way it makes sense is if Mayweather is willing to fight in the Octagon under the UFC banner. Time will tell if this fight is actually made.
During this week’s episode of UFC Tonight on FOX Sports 1 (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting), Woodley talked about possibly training Mayweather for an MMA fight.
In this episode, he suggested that it wouldn’t take a lot for an athlete like Mayweather to successfully transition into MMA.
The welterweight champion also believes that Mayweather “hold his own” against anyone in his weight class.
“Blocking kicks is really easy,” explained Woodley. “Once you get to the point where Floyd Mayweather is at, you can see that his boxing, his defense, his ability to see a punch coming in a fraction of a second and avoid or evade that punch, comes from repetition. Drilling over and over and over again. So that’s all we would have to do to utilize blocking kicks.
“If you look at mixed martial arts as a sport, there are guys that are in the UFC that don’t have a four out of five in their wrestling or jiu jitsu, so therefore, it’s not kinda crazy that someone with some of the best boxing we’ve ever seen may be able to hold his own.
“Obviously, every round starts on the feet, every fight starts on the feet, and if you can keep it on the feet, I think that he can hold his own with pretty much anyone in that weight division. My job is to really just help him avoid being taken down, using angles, using footwork, using defense, how to get back up if he gets taken down.”
“You think for one second I’m gonna be in Floyd Mayweather’s camp and I’m not gonna tighten up my boxing and get my hands ready to go?” said Woodley. “There’s gonna be a crossover in there. So I wouldn’t be second fiddle at all, it’s just a pivotal part of the sport where a boxing great decides to maybe come over to the octagon and see what he can do on that side and it’s an honor that they would consider me to do that.”
Keep in mind that the UFC has yet to officially announced that they have signed Mayweather or even suggested that they will have talks with the former boxing champion.
