As COVID-19 has officially shut down this weekends UFC fight card, which was supposed to originally take place in London, then in the United States, Tyron Woodley spoke with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, to clear the air on what really happened.
After the event fell through in London, so did Woodley’s opponent, Leon Edwards.
Once it was official that Edwards was out, due to the UFC trying to switch the venue to a US location, Colby Covington put his name out to fight Woodley on less than a week’s notice, to save the card.
There was a lot of back and forth regarding whether that fight would also happen or not.
After a couple days of delegating between the UFC, Woodley, and Covington, the fight never came to fruition.
On Wednesday, Woodley spoke with Helwani to tell fans exactly what happened, and how the negotiations to fight Covington really went.
“So I heard Colby had put his name out, which is all cap,” said Woodley. “Like he is such a social media cinderella. He literally put his name out there just for the attention, and he asked for some astronomical amount of money. That ‘okay I’ll fight Tyron for $19 million.’ Of course (the UFC’s) gonna say no. Duh. So now (he) can go on record and say, ‘I said I would fight, it’s on the UFC.’ So he did that on purpose.”
Woodley went on to explain that Colby has never wanted the fight against him in the first place, and he has proof.
After Covington won the interim welterweight title back in August of 2018, him and Woodley were supposed to fight next, to unify the titles. However, that fight never came together. Instead, Woodley went on to defend his title against Darren Till and Kamaru Usman.
“Colby Covington has turned me down, four times. Don’t believe the hype,” said Woodley. “If you do the math, from the time that I was champion. He got an interim title opportunity against Rafael Dos Anjos, and I had only been out – injured, for seven months. Not even a full year. It would be a natural progression for me to fight him, next. How did I fight Darren Till. How did I fight Kamaru Usman, before I fought Colby Covington.”
As it stands right now, Woodley doesn’t just have his eyes set on Covington. He has his eyes set on the entire welterweight division.
Although, Woodley did state that a fight against Covington would motivate him the most, moving forward.
[…] While Covington claimes that the fight didn’t happen due to president Trump’s newly instated regulations, Woodley claims Covington simply priced himself out of getting the fight, during negotiations. […]