Tyron Woodley Says He Doesn’t Have To Fight GSP To Be The Best
UFC Welterweight Champion Tyron Woodley is coming off of a successful title defense against Darren Till in the main event of UFC 228.
There was a time when Woodley thought a victory over former two division UFC champion Georges St. Pierre would make him the greatest welterweight fighter of all time, but now the champion looks at things differently.
“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 at the UFC 228 post-fight press conference. “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.”
GSP returned to action for the first time in over four years to defeat Michael Bisping at UFC 217, but hasn’t been heard from much since.
Woodley is still willing to fight St. Pierre, but says that bout isn’t a top priority anymore.
“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,” says Woodley.
St. Pierre has teased a comeback in recent weeks, but UFC President Dana White stated that GSP wouldn’t fight fora title anymore if he did come back.
