UFC 205 was full of historic moments, but didn't go as smoothly as many would have liked. One of the issues with the iconic event came when ring announcer Bruce Buffer incorrectly called the result a win for Woodley, even though it was a majority draw. Bruce Buffer recently welcomed Woodley on his podcast It's Time, where the two buried the hatchet.
You can check out a transcript of their discussion below.
BUFFER: “Well, basically what happened is, and I’ll take partial responsibility, but the thing is that I am the messenger, okay? The commission is the God. The commission is the one that … their word is word; I have to deliver that message. When they added up the scorecards, and they saw the two 47-47’s, then they said it’s a split, announce it as a split decision. I said ‘Are you sure?,’ and they said yes, so I have to go up in the Octagon. I started announcing, and then you saw where right as I said the judges’ scorecards or wherever I stopped, they had called me from down there and they asked me to come back down, so I went back down and I said “Did you change it?” and they said “no, everything’s fine, go back up, everything’s fine the way it is,” and I went back up and then I did my job.”
CO-HOST :“So you knew with the way they added it that it was a majority draw?”
BUFFER: “Yeah, no, I saw that, but in the moment of the indecision, and everything going on, then I focus on delivering the message that I’m told to deliver.”
BUFFER: “I basically have decided that if there’s ever a question in my mind in the future, with all respect to the Commissions and the commissioners, … Mark Ratner, the great Mark Ratner … if I ever have a question, no matter how fast production is telling me to get back in the Octagon, you know, “we’re short on time,” whatever it is, doesn’t matter, I’m going to take the moment to qualify and verify and I will do that. And when I went back up, Tyron, into the Octagon to announce the proper announcement, a majority decision, it wasn’t a Steve Harvey moment, because Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner, okay? In this case, you are still the champion, but it was a majority draw.”
WOODLEY: “Well, I appreciate that, and I’m not saying it’s not needed, but I do appreciate you. I really was confused, I’d never had a draw before, I didn’t know exactly what that meant. I did think Dana started saying something, started walking towards me, and I thought he was gonna loosen my belt, and anybody that came back was just a risk, because I was not having that. I did see that something was wrong with the mic. Any time it takes a long time, you know it’s probably a split decision, or they’re having a tough time judging the last round, because all the four rounds before should have already been judged, so with that said, I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I was prepared to hear you say “And Still.” I was also prepared to be heartbroken and feel like I was robbed of the fight and completely go ape-crap, inside obviously—always professional—but what happened was I did not listen to the first scorecards. My eyes were closed and I was praying, brother, I didn’t know what the heck was about to happen, so I never heard 47-47, 47-47. I never heard that. The only thing I heard was one judge had 48-47 Tyron, and winner by split decision, and STILL, and that’s when all the weight jumped off my chest, the monkey jumped off my back.”
