Tyron Woodley successfully defended the UFC Welterweight Title against Stephen Thompson at UFC 209.
The victorious Woodley is just happy to be the welterweight champion.
“I want to see Dana White get it in there and fight ‘Wonderboy,'” Woodley said after the event. “Watch everybody else that walked in there. Watch Patrick Cote. Watch Robert Whittaker. Watch all these guys who thought they were just going to bulldoze him and they disrespected his style. I did the opposite. I embraced his style. What happens is, you think you’ve got it figured out, and kicks and punches come from weird angles. You find yourself without this (belt), and you find yourself knocked out. So, I know this is a sport where you guys love to see knockouts. You love to see the gore. You love to see blood, guys getting beat up, and then he find a way to come back, and then the other guy. I love watching that as well, but guess what – I love being the world champion. And sometimes it’s not the sexiest fight on Earth.”
Stephen Thompson is the only opponent Woodley has fought since he became the welterweight champion by defeating Robbie Lawler at UFC 201. Woodley was hesitant to engage Thompson for the majority of the fight and that got the fans in attendance to jeer the champion.
“It’s so easy to say it from the seat that you’re sitting in,” Woodley said. “But when you’re fighting a world-class fighter who’s finished so many opponents, so many knockouts, so many tricks up his sleeve, sometimes you have to be patient, and you have to find that moment. That moment came in the fourth round. It came in the first round the last fight. This fight, it really didn’t come until the fifth round. Granted, I could’ve created that atmosphere. I could have done more feints, more level changes, more takedowns, attempts, combinations. But at the end of the day, if I worried about what the fans said, I wouldn’t be in this position right now. I love the fans. They make our sport. They make the UFC what it is. But I’m the person that’s in there fighting, and this is the toughest division in the world.”
Thompson and Woodley first fought to a majority draw back at UFC 205.
