For a long time Tyron Woodley has targeted a fight with Georges St-Pierre as being one that could help cement his legacy as the greatest welterweight of all-time, but as he continues to put together an increasingly impressive run of title defenses he’s now starting to cool on the idea.
“It’s always appealed to me, but I’m not going to keep calling out a guy that’s already had nine title defenses, ran the whole division,” Woodley said after his latest victory over Darren Till. “He stepped away from the sport, he came back, he made it very obvious that he wanted to fight certain types of fights and it didn’t look like he wanted to fight me, so. At one point I thought I needed to beat him to be the greatest because who is going to say he’s not the greatest welterweight of all time?
“He beat the best welterweights in the world. It wasn’t like he was just running through guys that was horrible. He was beating stud after stud after stud and he really separated himself from everybody else. I watched him do that for so long and I always envisioned fighting him, always envisioned beating him. I told myself that I had to beat him to be the greatest, but I don’t.”
The way Woodley sees it, the standard of opposition he’s facing now is better than in St-Pierre’s day, because fighters are now more well-rounded than ever before.
“This sport is different,” Woodley said. “These guys are better, they’re more well rounded. They’re better, they’re faster. They’ve been training at a young ago. It’s not the wrestler that just learned how to punch. I think the fact that I’ve been able to beat the last specialists in the game, beat the up-and-coming rising star, beat Robbie Lawler, who is one of the most vicious fighters we’ve ever seen with two title fights that are probably in the top 10 of best title fights of all times, then it don’t take much more.
“If he wants to fight me of course I will fight Georges St-Pierre. I just really don’t think he has too, I don’t think he has any interest and I’m kind of over it at this point.”
