Tyron Woodley Says African Americans Face Double Standards In UFC

UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley ascended to the throne in brutal fashion at UFC 201. Blasting Robbie Lawler with an overhand right straight out of a horror novel, ‘The Chosen One’ came of age in his UFC career. After waiting out for 18 months for his title shot, Woodley had won in a big gamble. Many fighters have tried the same in the past and come unstuck. Since winning the belt, Woodley has landed himself in a melting pot of debates. The first conversation the Ferguson native had after leaving the octagon was with number one contender Stephen Thompson, a moment that sparked outrage in some circles.

Criticizing Woodley for ‘ducking’ the top welterweight ‘Wonderboy,’ some angry fans went on tirades towards the new champ. Although he’s now booked in to face Thompson at UFC 205, Woodley first called out Nick Diaz and Georges St-Pierre. Claiming he was after the ‘money fights’ that are now gaining popularity, the newly minted 170-pound boss faced a harsh backlash in response.

Fire With Fire

Woodley was not coy in his reaction to the hate he began receiving after UFC 201. When it was eventually revealed he would be fighting Thompson on November 12, ‘The Chosen One’ claimed he’d accepted the fight nearly immediately. ‘T-Wood’ would also claim that racism was the base for a lot of the criticism he received, stating he’d faced prejudice slurs and hate messages on social media. Angela Hill would go on Twitter to state ‘Wonderboy’ was the fans ‘great white hope,’ a term coined in the era of the first African American boxing champion Jack Johnson.

Speaking during The MMA Hour, Woodley used middleweight champion Michael Bisping as an example of double standards. All but directly pointing it out, Woodley clearly feels that ‘The Count’s’ upcoming fight against Dan Henderson is an example of double standards.

Tyron Woodley’s Comments

“Patrick Ewing was in a big negotiation for a big deal, and they were negotiating, going back and forth. And he got to a point where you can see that he felt he was valued at a different value, and the person just put it out there, ‘when’s enough enough?’ Like, when’s enough money enough money. But it wasn’t that hey you don’t deserve this amount, it was in a tone that, ‘you’re an African American athlete, you’re playing professional basketball, aren’t you making enough money?”

“He took it really personal, and he should have. When people bring up race, they automatically want to call it ‘race baiting.’ Or like [Angela] ‘Overkill’ Hill, she posted something like ‘the Great White Hope,’ I said, ‘you said it, not me.’ Now I’m on the feeds getting hit up about it.”

“Micheal Bisping’s fighting the 12th or 13th ranked guy,” Woodley said. “I love Dan Henderson. He’s done a crapload for my career — he was my first sponsor with Clinch Gear. Yeah, I love Dan Henderson. I’ve trained with him. But if you look at the sport, if you look at the sport’s purists, he’s not the first person to deserve a title shot. Maybe ‘Jacare’ Souza, maybe a rematch with Luke Rockhold, maybe Chris Weidman, whoever. But, this fight makes sense why? Because Bisping wanted this fight, and because this fight could draw some money.”

Double Standards?

“But if I do that, now it’s an issue. If Conor McGregor can fight Nate Diaz two times — the first time, people forget the whole reason why they fought. He was supposed to go up and fight for that belt and then potentially come up to get whooped at 170 trying to fight for that belt, but [Rafael dos Anjos] couldn’t fight. Nate was a late-minute replacement.”

“He beat him, when many people didn’t think he was going to beat him fighting on 10 day’s notice, the trash talk, build another fight. Why is this fight even happening at 170? We forget the reason why. But that fight’s okay. It’s okay for those guys to go out there and make five million dollars for a non-title fight on record for purse…and another three million for pay-per-view.  It’s okay to talk about that money, but you’re a champion, oh we should never want that kind of money. That’s kind of funny to me.”

‘Bunch of crazy white fighters’

“Now you can have one person from Ferguson that’s successful in their eyes,” he said. “I don’t think I’m successful yet because I’ve got so much left in this sport, and so much I’ve got left yet to do, but boxing has primarily grabbed the urban market. With Floyd Mayweather retiring, I thought it was a perfect opportunity for us to educate. You have to educate first.

“Because I’m being honest, most people that are in that market view mixed martial arts as a sport where a whole bunch of crazy white fighters are kicking the hell out of each other, with a sprinkling of a few brothers in there. That’s what they think of it as. So we have to educate them on this. One, it’s not called UFC fighting. One it’s not called boxing or wrestling or cage fighting, it’s called mixed martial arts, that’s the name of the sport. If you take boxing, kickboxing, tae kwon do, judo, karate, jiu-jitsu, wrestling — each sport divided by itself is respected, but when you blend them together sometimes people start having issues with them.””