UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley has accepted the fact that he will not be warmly accepted by fight fans. For him, it is all part of being in the business today, and it is something which he says he does not take personally.
“I don’t take nothing to heart, that’s what makes me a great businessman because I don’t get emotional and I know that at the end of the day, when I fight, I am going to do what I am supposed to do, which is win,” Woodley told Ariel Helwani during last week’s MMA Hour episode. “The more I do that, the more you are not going to be able to deny me.”
His challenger, Stephen Thompson, however, seems to think otherwise. When the two men were in the midst of each other’s presence at the UFC 205 pre-fight presser last week, amongst the hundreds of New York fight fans in attendance, Woodley was met by more boos than cheers. It was something that “Wonderboy” believes had affected the champion, one way or another.
In an interview with Submission Radio, Thompson also clarified that there were no personal grudges between them, despite Woodley’s previous comments about “not having respect for him as a man.”
“Yeah, everything was cool during last week, during the media. We were talking to each other, shaking hands. Like I said, it might have been like a scare tactic or something he was trying to do to get in my head,” Thompson said. “And obviously I let him know real quick it’s not gonna work.”
“And looking in his eyes, I don’t know if there was a little disappointment there that I saw. I figured that he might’ve thought that the fans maybe would’ve had his back. He was a little surprised that they were booing him and I could tell that, and I think that’s in his head a little bit.”