Tyron Woodley Says Stephen Thompson Got Underneath His Skin

In an interview with The Anik and Florian Podcast (via Bloody Elbow), Tyron Woodley revealed that he didn’t like Stephen Thompson and didn’t respect him. Thompson has been wanting a title shot for a while now and will finally get his chance against Woodley at UFC 205. Here are highlights:

On his thoughts on Thompson: “The thing that motivates me about this fight is, Wonderboy, I respect him as an opponent, but I really don’t respect him as a man. He knows that we committed to this fight almost six weeks ago. And for him to charade around like I’m scared to fight him, retweeting and liking all these posts, for someone to desperately need to that affirmation from the fans and for people to like him, I can’t respect that.”

On Thompson’s comments: “For some reason, he has managed to get underneath my skin. And I just don’t buy that fake humble, I just don’t buy it. When someone’s portraying something they’re not to get underneath my skin, I’m just going to funnel that into a great strategy and I’m going to try to get him out of there quick.”