UFC Welterweight Champion Tyron Woodley claims that he will help train boxer Floyd Mayweather for a potential professional MMA debut.
The welterweight title holder believes the retired boxer can hold his own inside of the Octagon.
“Blocking kicks is really easy,” said Woodley on UFC Tonight. “Once you get to the point where Floyd Mayweather is at, you can see that his boxing, his defense, his ability to see a punch coming in a fraction of a second and avoid or evade that punch, comes from repetition. Drilling over and over and over again. So that’s all we would have to do to utilize blocking kicks. If you look at mixed martial arts as a sport, there are guys that are in the UFC that don’t have a four out of five in their wrestling or jiu jitsu, so therefore, it’s not kinda crazy that someone with some of the best boxing we’ve ever seen may be able to hold his own. Obviously, every round starts on the feet, every fight starts on the feet, and if you can keep it on the feet, I think that he can hold his own with pretty much anyone in that weight division. My job is to really just help him avoid being taken down, using angles, using footwork, using defense, how to get back up if he gets taken down.”
Woodley isn’t the only fighter to provide advice to Mayweather, as former UFC Bantamweight Champion Dominick Cruz suggested that the boxer learn takedown defense.
One thing that Woodley would like to learn from Mayweather is some boxing skills to improve his striking game.
“You think for one second I’m gonna be in Floyd Mayweather’s camp and I’m not gonna tighten up my boxing and get my hands ready to go?” said Woodley. “There’s gonna be a crossover in there. So I wouldn’t be second fiddle at all, it’s just a pivotal part of the sport where a boxing great decides to maybe come over to the octagon and see what he can do on that side and it’s an honor that they would consider me to do that.”
Mayweather recently suggested that he is going to apply for an MMA license, but there is no time frame for a potential MMA debut.
