Tyron Woodley: ‘I’ve Got a Weird Peace for Somebody Who Just Got Their Ass Whipped’

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Tyron Woodley vowed that he’d be in a better place against Gilbert Burns than he was when he lost the welterweight championship to Kamaru Usman more than a year ago.

Though things didn’t turn out as planned against Burns in the UFC on ESPN 9 main event, Woodley felt like he did everything right leading up to Saturday’s main event at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

“You can’t just get on the camera when you win, you’ve got to get on the camera when you lose, too,” Woodley said in a video posted on his Instagram account. “I felt good. I have no excuses. I trained hard. I was in great shape. I felt like I did everything right. Everything felt good from the walkout to the stretch — every single thing about the fight.”

Shortly after the bout began, Burns took control. He had Woodley reeling in the opening moments of Round 1 and dominated every aspect of the fight from there. Woodley, meanwhile, was unable to find a home for his devastating right hand. Without that option, Woodley didn’t appear to have a backup plan.

“I looked him in the eyes, and I knew he was gonna be ready to fight, which I thought that was good. He did a good job of keeping the distance, not coming into shots. I just felt like I was reaching,” Woodley said.

Despite the lopsided nature of the defeat, Woodley was proud that he was able to make it to the final horn. He said he used the death of George Floyd as motivation to keep going in the fight.

“I’m gonna hold my head high. A lot of motherf—-ers would have let somebody finish them off. I wasn’t fixing to f—ing give up,” Woodley said. “I was thinking about everybody right now protesting and fighting for something good, with Mr. Floyd’s family. I was like, ‘I can’t just give up in here.’”

Burns’ initial assault opened a nasty cut above Woodley’s eye, which he said required “three or four layers” of stitches. The Brazilian’s leg kicks also took their toll.

“I never really gave up. I hoped that I was gonna win the fight,” Woodley said. “I know he kicked me in my leg and that motherf—er ain’t been right since … I could not get a rhythm going. Injury-wise, I think I’m fine.”

While everything seemed to be falling into place for Woodley heading into UFC on ESPN 9, he doesn’t yet have an answer for what went wrong inside the Octagon. However, the 38-year-old isn’t dwelling on the setback.

“I just wanted to face you guys because I don’t understand [why I lost] — it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, it’s not very clear. But I just know I’ve got to trust God,” Woodley said. “I’ve got a weird peace for somebody who just got their ass whipped. I don’t know why I’m at peace.

“Not with losing to Gilbert; Gilbert came out and did his thing, and at the end of the day, it wasn’t a situation like the Usman fight where I felt like I wasn’t there. I was there. I was present. I was responding. I heard what my coaches were saying. I just couldn’t get my hands on him. I can take a loss when I feel like I was present.”

Facing the first two-bout losing streak of his career, Woodley has no designs on calling it a career.

“I’ll be back. I ain’t never took no ‘L’ back-to-back…that was not in the plans,” he said. “Once again, condolences to the Floyd family. We are holding you guys up and praying for you guys. We are with you. We are standing strong with you. I would have loved to have gotten a victory and had a bigger platform for that, but things happen for a reason. I don’t understand why, but it is what it is.”

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A post shared by Tyron Woodley (@twooodley) on May 30, 2020 at 9:52pm PDT