Dana White didn’t hold back in letting the world know that he was less than thrilled about Tyron Woodley’s performance on Saturday night at UFC 214, and the welterweight champion isn’t happy about it.
White was so underwhelmed with Woodley’s decision win over Demian Maia that he led the media know post-fight that Woodley would no longer be getting the chance to fight returning superstar Georges St-Pierre next, saying that middleweight champion Michael Bisping would do so instead, because, “I know Bisping will fight.”
The UFC president also pointed out that Woodley’s bout had gone done in the record books for the least amount of punches landed in a title fight, and that the crowd in attendance boo’d him out of the arena afterwards.
“If you get booed out of the arena, that’s not good,” White said. “That’s how you make money.If people don’t want to watch you, it’s a bad sign.”
However, Woodley has now fired back, claiming that White isn’t doing his job as a promoter by talking down one of his champions in this manner, while also claiming that an injured shoulder was responsible for his lack of offensive output on Saturday night.
“I don’t care so much about the fans, but when your job title is promoter, promote your (expletive) fighter,” Woodley stated on ‘The MMA Hour’ show. “Promote your champion. Don’t demote your champion.
“I threw my shoulder out in the first round. I wasn’t able to throw any damaging shots — for you guys who don’t understand what a labrum tear is, go get on Google or Wikipedia and figure it out — and I still stayed the course, I stayed on path, I stayed on point, I executed the gameplan. I had to reduce all of my shots from overhands, uppercuts, things that were hurting my shoulder, to straight punches.”
“I’m owed a public apology. You’re going to publicly scrutinize me, Dana White? You publicly need to apologize to me.”
However, White will likely point out that, regardless of Woodley’s injury, his performance in the Octagon this past weekend largely mirrored his previous two title defenses against Stephen Thompson, where he also adopted a very cautious, low output strategy.
Nevertheless, Woodley feels hard done by, and he event went as far as to threaten White with leaking out sensitive information if he doesn’t get a public apology from him.
“I’ve done nothing but good stuff for the sport. I’ve done nothing but be a good model for the (expletive) organization,” Woodley continued. “I go out there and I fight with integrity. I covered your sport from the FOX desk a week before my fight. I always uphold my responsibilities to the organization. It is time out for that. The word behind ‘business’ is ‘man.’ You need to be a man; you owe me a public apology.
And if I don’t get that, I’m going to start leaking some (expletive) that people don’t want to be out in the wind. I’m not even kidding about that.”
