Whats next for Tyrone Woodley?

[Cory Kennedy]

Coming off his 3rd consecutive loss against Colby Covington, this leaves the question. What is next for former UFC Welterweight Champion Tyrone Woodley?

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[LyricalLyricist]

No killer instinct but still has talent and toughness. He's rich, famous, has 4 jobs lined up and he just cares about the brand of being the GOAT or the champ...both of which may be outside of his reach.

Let us not forget 1 win after Usman fight and Woodley had a claim for a rematch and he couldn't get it. How motivated will he be when he's further down the ranks 2-3 fights away?

GSP said it himself, he doesn't want to come back to UFC and fight contender after contender. Too much pressure and he's done with that.

In my opinion, Woodley has checked out from the grind. He has too much pressure on his shoulders and can't fight as a result. He knows he has to work his way back up and earn this and that to be a contender and champ again. He's too old.

Woodley has two options IMO.

1) Retire

2) Fight just to fight, going nowhere

3) Drop the GOAT tag, drop the champ aspirations and fight for fun. Fight for competition, not for BLM, not for anything other than you want to fight and give him a fight for fun and not to move up the ranks. Treat his career as 1 fight at a time.

 

[Cory Kennedy]

No killer instinct but still has talent and toughness. He's rich, famous, has 4 jobs lined up and he just cares about the brand of being the GOAT or the champ...both of which may be outside of his reach.

Let us not forget 1 win after Usman fight and Woodley had a claim for a rematch and he couldn't get it. How motivated will he be when he's further down the ranks 2-3 fights away?

GSP said it himself, he doesn't want to come back to UFC and fight contender after contender. Too much pressure and he's done with that.

In my opinion, Woodley has checked out from the grind. He has too much pressure on his shoulders and can't fight as a result. He knows he has to work his way back up and earn this and that to be a contender and champ again. He's too old.

Woodley has two options IMO.

1) Retire

2) Fight just to fight, going nowhere

3) Drop the GOAT tag, drop the champ aspirations and fight for fun. Fight for competition, not for BLM, not for anything other than you want to fight and give him a fight for fun and not to move up the ranks. Treat his career as 1 fight at a time.

If I were Tyrone, I would retire and let my legacy rest in the history books, I wouldn't keep fighting just to become the new Anderson Silva and ruin my GOAT tag.

 

[CDJ]

Biggest sign a guy is done is when they stop throwing. We’re seeing the same thing with Lawler


I still think he can probably beat people outside the top 10 but what’s really the point? He doesn’t seem like a Cerrone/Lawler type who you can tell won’t stop until Dana forces them to. He’s got outside interests. He’s got money. I hope he hangs em up and enjoys retirement knowing he’s probably a top 3-5 UFC WW ever and one of the greatest WW of all time. He got old. It happens. Tough to be his age at that weight class.

 

[Perennial]

I would cut him if I were the UFC...

He's done absolutely nothing in his last 3 fights to warrant another one

 

[Perennial]

Woodley has landed just 192 strikes in his last 3 fights...

For comparison sake, in their fight with Woodley, Usman landed 336 strikes, and Covington landed 232

 

[darko]

He shouldn't fight again.

 

[m9]

If he wants to keep fighting, I would let him keeping fighting and lowering his opposition if he keeps losing.

Someone like Chiesa next would be fine. If he loses that, someone in the 10-15 range works. If he loses that then he's fighting unranked guys.

 

[pistolpete11]

Despite getting wiped out 15 rounds in a row, he hasn't taken much major damage to the head, so if he wants to keep fighting, whatever. I just don't know what he wants from it. A guy like Lawler, I get it. All he knows is fighting and is a fighter to his core. Woodley, though, has all these other interests outside of fighting, so why not hang 'em up and focus on that stuff?

I know he's fighting top level guys, but it's not that he is losing. It's how he is losing. As @CDJ said, when a fighter can't pull the trigger anymore, it's usually a sign he's at the end. This is 3 times in a row where we heard "I don't know what happened. I wasn't myself in there." I don't see anything changing because he fights some lower level guys.

Basically, though, I don't really care. I don't care to watch him anymore, but if the UFC uses him to build up some lower ranked guys, that's fine. If I was his family or friend, I'd push him to retire, but just as a fan, I don't care.

 

[m9]

I think people should look at what happened to Damien Maia in the same division a couple of years back when he was around 40. He was run over by Woodley, Covington, and Usman in three straight fights - three guys near the top of the division.

Sound familiar?

Maia then dropped off down to fight the mid-tier and won three straight vs Martin, Good, and Askren before working himself up to fight Burns who beat him.

Point is, he deserves the opportunity to see if he can compete in the UFC.

 

[CDJ]

I think people should look at what happened to Damien Maia in the same division a couple of years back when he was around 40. He was run over by Woodley, Covington, and Usman in three straight fights - three guys near the top of the division.

Sound familiar?

Maia then dropped off down to fight the mid-tier and won three straight vs Martin, Good, and Askren before working himself up to fight Burns who beat him.

Point is, he deserves the opportunity to see if he can compete in the UFC.

he definitely deserves the opportunity but I’m not sure he wants the opportunity tbh


People don’t recognize how incredible he was- the oldest WW champion in history, doing it at an age most fighters are cooked at. Despite his phenomenal shape he’s just really old, especially for a weight class that isn’t Heavyweight. I feel like his age gets overlooked because he does still look like he’s in his physical prime


Edit: turns out he doesn’t want to retire

 

[pistolpete11]

I think people should look at what happened to Damien Maia in the same division a couple of years back when he was around 40. He was run over by Woodley, Covington, and Usman in three straight fights - three guys near the top of the division.

Sound familiar?

Maia then dropped off down to fight the mid-tier and won three straight vs Martin, Good, and Askren before working himself up to fight Burns who beat him.

Point is, he deserves the opportunity to see if he can compete in the UFC.

The difference to me is that Maia has one way to win and he tried, tried, and tried again to get all of those fights to the ground. He just couldn't. Woodley on the other hand, just doesn't do anything. He accepts being clinched against the cage and then accepts being in full guard. He's just hanging on to survive. He doesn't throw, he doesn't look to break the clinch, he's not looking for submissions or reversals. As I said above, it's not that he's losing. It's how he is losing.

But, also as I said above, I don't really care if he keeps fighting. He hasn't taken a ton of damage in his career and if he wants to keep fighting, that's his prerogative. But I am certainly not looking forward to his next fight.

 

[CDJ]

I think his next fight is going to be in Bellator or the PFL

Him and Rory would make the WW tourney in PFL interesting


I really don’t want to see him fight Douglas Lima though

 

[m9]

The more I think about it, I thinking he's at the spot in his career where taking a fight at 185lb makes sense. Maybe just do the Gastelum rematch, or if not then someone lower in the rankings like Brad Tavares.

 

[BGDDYKWL]

He's done. He obviously could still compete with guys outside the top 5 or so, but if he doesn't need the money what's the point? He's been so thoroughly dominated by the top of the division there's nothing to point to to say, "If he does this or that he could get back." He's miles from these guys.

I've said it before but I always felt his reign was much more right place right time than it was him truly being great. I don't think he's lost a step as much as these guys are just much better than him.

I don't see 185 going well for him at all. I know he's muscular, but he's tiny. If he's getting ragdolled by WWs I can't even imagine what big MWs would do to him. You'd have a guy who's gun-shy, outsized, outreached, who can't even grapple with the top WWs. It'd be ugly.