EXCLUSIVE | Tyron Woodley praises both Ronda Rousey and Amanda Nunes following UFC 207

In addition to being the final scrap of the year, UFC 207’s main event scrap between Ronda Rousey and Amanda Nunes was one of the most highly anticipated showdowns of the year.

Unfortunately for Rousey, while she was hoping to make a successful return to the Octagon following her UFC 193 loss to Holly Holm in November of 2015, it took just 48 seconds for Amanda Nunes to out-strike Rousey and force referee Herb Dean to stop the fight due to TKO.

In the wake of the fight, Tyron Woodley spoke with Chris Taylor on BJPenn.com’s Rapid Fire to discuss the fight, saying:

• Did you watch UFC 207 and how shocked were you by Amanda Nunes’ quick TKO victory over former champ Ronda Rousey?

“I just thought Ronda would have had enough ability to maybe grab a clinch. You know if someone is punching you sometimes you can gather yourself for a few seconds so that you can grab a clinch. I thought Rousey would be able to clinch Amanda a couple of times and that the fight would go in to the second round. But I did know Nunes would finish her inside of two rounds. Just because, well let me say this first, Ronda is a bad bad women man. She is a great athlete and great for the sport. I don’t want anyone to think that I am hating on Ronda. Because Ronda has done stuff for me, all of the Strikeforce imports that came over during the merger, she’s probably the reason the UFC wanted to buy Strikeforce. Ronda made people who would never normally watch something like the UFC become fans and actually watch the sport. So shout out to her for that.”

He continued:

“But at the end of the day you do have a thing called loyalty. You know, Amanda Nunes is somebody that me, my wife and my family have been fans of for so long. We fought on the Nashville card the first time I saw her in Strikeforce and she beat down Julia Budd so fast (14 seconds) and ever since then me and my family have just been huge fans of hers. We always knew she had the tools and we also knew she had what it takes to become a champion. I just knew that she was going to be to much for Ronda. She’s just to sharp, she is a black belt in jiu-jitsu, she is hard to take down and she hits way harder than Holly (Holm). She has way better footwork than Holly had and we all saw what Holm did when she fought Ronda.”

• So do you think this is the end for Ronda Rousey or do you believe she will comeback?

“I don’t know what fight would make sense for her. Because the Cyborg fight we know is not going to happen. If that was the end result of Amanda Nunes and her, then no manager should allow their client to step in to a fight like that against Cyborg. So there are no real big fights for Ronda left. She is such a huge star that I don’t know what fights they (the UFC) could put her in. Miesha Tate is out of the picture. Holly Holm is moving to another weight class. So there is not much left for Ronda.”