EXCLUSIVE | Tyron Woodley discusses his fight with Stephen Thompson and why it could have been stopped in round 4

UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley joined host Chris Taylor on BJPENN.com’s Rapid Fire segment where he discussed his UFC 205 “fight of the night” title bout with Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson.

The epic five-round battle between Thompson and Woodley was declared a 47-47 draw by two of the three judges in attendance, with the third judge awarding ‘T-Wood’ the decision by a score of 48-47.

The end result, after some confusion between the commission and announcer Bruce Buffer, was a majority decision draw.

Chris asked Tyron if the fight with Stephen Thompson played out how he thought it would and if anything surprised him.

“No I have a great staff. A great set of guys who were working on film for me. I had great stats pulled for me and just a ton of analytics for his fight style. So no, nothing really surprised me. The fight went similar to how I thought it would go. You know there was a few things that  I did a little differently that wasn’t a part of the game-plan and obviously my coaches gave it to me a little bit for that. But I went out there and defended my strap. I believe I won that fight  and so it is what it is.”

Taylor asked ‘T-Wood’ is he was surprised that only one judge gave him the fight and that the other two judges scored the contest a draw.

“I just think that I won the third-round. I think the other two judges who scored the fight a draw said I lost that round. The judge who said I won, he didn’t even give me any 10-8 rounds, he just said I won round three. So I thought I won rounds 1, 3 and 4. And you know in round four I thought the fight should have been stopped. It definitely should have been a 10-8 round. I mean if the second judge declared the first-round a 10-8 round, with that logic round  four should have been a 10-7 round. Because there was way more chances where the referee could have stopped it. You know I dropped him three times in that round (round four). I had three different versions of a guillotine choke on him so I had him in way more danger in the fourth-round than I did in the first. So it is kind of peculiar that three judges saw three different fights. But this was the first show in New York, so  I can’t expect that they will just up and know what MMA is. Especially when you have a guy quoted as being a ‘wrestler’ who just completely out-struck the guy who is supposed to be the best striker in our weight-class.”

Chris asked Tyron if he was surprised that he was not able to put Thompson away in the fourth-round adding that his guillotine choke looked to be a done deal.

“Yea, the way that I pulled guard I should have put his head down first and then jumped guard. Because what happens is because his torso is pretty long, I needed to get my back higher so that I could really apply that pressure on the choke. With that said, I still knew that he was panicking. I felt him touch my body and thought he might be ready to tapout. I was really close to getting the finish.”

 As for what is next for Woodley going forward.

“I am willing to entertain any fight but I’m not willing to commit to any fight at this point. I just want to weigh my options and see what is the best choice for myself.  I’m not going to take a fight that will benefit someone else, I am here to take fights that will benefit me. So with that said, I will look at any fight that is available to me and then my management team will play the bad guys and make the best choice for me.”

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