mma / Columns

Tyron Woodley’s Bad Bet and the Welterweight Title Picture

February 8, 2016 | Posted by Dan Plunkett

On October 2, 2015, it appeared Tyron Woodley was as close to his goal as he could get before achieving it. “My next fight will be a title shot,” he tweeted. “I’m not fighting anybody in between!”

Woodley earned a bye to the title opportunity. For weeks, he’d prepared for a grueling match with former collegiate wrestling rival Johny Hendricks that would serve as the co-main event of the UFC 192. A title shot wasn’t explicitly guaranteed to the winner, but the bout’s high profile made the stakes plainly obvious. Hendricks, the former champion, had lost his title year earlier via a judges’ decision so controversial the UFC’s initial intention was to promote an immediate rematch. Woodley had won four of his past five fights, with the loss coming to a fighter whose own title chance had come and gone. Even the most casual observers could have surmised the Woodley-Hendricks winner would earn a title shot. After all, both were overtly more qualified for the shot than the athlete who had been chosen to step ahead of them.

The night before the battle of the scale, complications from a weight cut gone bad forced Hendricks to the hospital. The fight was off. Perhaps acting too quickly in response to the unexpected situation, the UFC informed Woodley that he was next in line for the championship. As many fighters do with the biggest fight of their careers firmly in striking distance, Woodley took a seat on the bench to wait for his time under the lights instead of risking it all in the cage. Little did he know, sitting by idly might have been the riskiest option of all.

A Natural Born Killer
For obvious reasons, mixed martial arts promotions have always given the most preferential treatment to star fighters – the combatants whose mere presence assure a busy night at the box office. The next most favorable group is the action fighters, those who put on a show that brings the crowd to its feet and hooks them to come back for the next fight. No fighter that fits more comfortably into the latter class than Carlos Condit.

Condit is a finisher and a rare evolution of the breed. He doesn’t have the power of physique of the prototypical finisher. When stoppages fail to come, he finds fuel where others find doubt. Eventually, through an incessant assault, the referee is usually forced to intervene. Of his 30 career victories, only two reached the final bell. Although his mantle isn’t crowded with “Fight of the Year” awards, few fighters in history have consistently been involved in such great bouts while growing to elite status.

A reputation built from years of great fights landed him in the cage with welterweight champion Robbie Lawler on January 2, 2016. He certainly hadn’t earned the bout in the conventional sense – he was 2-3 in his last five fights, including losses to top contenders Woodley and Hendricks, and had fought only once in the aftermath of a knee injury that sidelined him for a year. Nevertheless, no fighter is going to turn down a world title match on moral grounds. He would prove he deserved to be there once in the cage.

It was a clash of volume and power. Condit nearly tripled Lawler’s overall output and peppered the champion with twice as many strikes as he absorbed in return. However, strike measure against strike, there was no question whose impacted with more force. Lawler’s punches bruised Condit and rattled his brain, and even sent him to the canvas in round two. In four of five rounds, the winner was clear. Condit was a clear victor in rounds one and four, while Lawler pounded Condit to the point of desperation in rounds two and five. Round three was the swing round, and served as a microcosm of the entire bout. In those five crucial minutes, Condit tagged Lawler 22 times by FightMetric’s count, while Lawler landed half as many blows, but with more meat on them.

One judge sided with Condit’s activity; two favored Lawler’s big swings. The majority of the public, those whose opinions don’t count once inside the cage but whose views often influence who steps inside, cried foul. Robbie Lawler had the belt snapped around his waist, but to the fans, it was by rights Carlos Condit’s belt. Of course, Lawler wasn’t going to take his belt off for morality’s sake. If Carlos Condit wanted the most prized possession at welterweight, a referee or at least two judges would have to take it off Lawler. After a classic fight decided by the narrowest of margins, fans were eager for Condit to get that opportunity once again.

On the sidelines, the on-deck circle Tyron Woodley had stood in since October shrunk to an unwelcoming size. “Even before the fifth round, the way the fight was going, I already was thinking, ‘goddammit, they’re about to do this fight again,’” he told the MMA Hour after the fight.

However, Woodley had not lost all hope. “Carlos Condit is mentioning retiring, so there’s two ways that could go. He could retire and then it’s obvious who’s fighting next — this man right here — or he can go up to Dana White and be like, ‘hey man, if I don’t fight my fight for the title, I’m going to retire.’ And what do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to line his pockets and they’re going to make it happen.”

When Carlos Condit was initially tabbed for a title shot over Woodley and Hendricks, it was a decision made due to his fighting spirit and exciting style. By the close of January, Woodley hadn’t seen the inside of the UFC’s octagon in a year. His last bout had been a dull, unconvincing decision victory that was widely criticized as the worst match of the night. Then he punched his ticket to a title shot – a ticket that certain fighters have found themselves unable to redeem – by default.

Decisions are made in moments. The UFC decided to promise Woodley a title shot in one moment, but all of the time between the moment he was promised a title shot and the moment he is given a title shot gives other contenders the opportunity to steal the UFC’s attention with a big bang. Carlos Condit made noise against Lawler that overshadowed the promise made to Woodley. He wouldn’t be the only opportunist at welterweight.

Enter The Wonderboy
Stephen Thompson is a lifelong martial artist with a style that was seemingly proven obsolete by jiu-jitsu and wrestling in MMA’s formative years. A karateka that won multiple world championships in kickboxing, Thompson had a mysterious aura about him when he entered the UFC. He stands and moves differently than other fighters, his attacks are what fans have always expected to see from someone referring to themselves as a martial artist, with kicks from all angles.

His UFC debut turned heads, especially Dan Stittgen’s, who fell to a first round head kick knockout. For that, Thompson earned “Knockout of the Night,” but he would earn greater fame a year later when he mimicked Anderson Silva for training partner Chris Weidman on Weidman’s way to twice defeating the all-time great. Training with world champions improved Thompson’s game substantially, thrusted him into the UFC’s top ten rankings, and soon he found himself matched with former champion Johny Hendricks.

It appeared to be a different Johny Hendricks – not the guy that had to take the hospital trip in Houston or the one whose drained gas tank assisted Robbie Lawler to a title win. He’d cut the fat, arrived in Las Vegas near weight, and changed camps. Hendricks at his best is a scary fighter: a strong wrestler with a left hand that could stop a bull. Stephen Thompson would be facing the fighter that should have beaten Georges St-Pierre and never should have lost his title to Robbie Lawler, only in better shape.

It wasn’t close. It was the style, it was the movement, it was the range, it was the strikes. Hendricks was drawing with crayons and Thompson was painting a masterpiece. St-Pierre, Lawler, Condit, Koscheck, Fitch, Kampmann – Hendricks had faced them all. The losses were close and controversial, the wins were usually convincing. None handled him as Thompson did Saturday at UFC Fight Night.

Four months ago, Thompson wasn’t even in the title mix. He was the Karate Kid, the UFC’s most notable karateka since Lyoto Machida, but with a more crowd-pleasing approach to the art. In one performance, he jumped from a face in the crowd to the forefront. He didn’t just look like a formidable title challenger, he looked better than both Lawler and Condit did in early January. When the discussion for the next title shot seemed to be a two-horse race, Thompson emphatically butted in.

With each passing day, Woodley fell further behind the pack. His most recent performance couldn’t match those of Condit and Thompson. All he has going for him is a message he received in October. It’s a message that the UFC has rescinded in the past, particularly when the scent of money leads them in a different direction.

The X-Factor
Georges St-Pierre is the greatest welterweight of all-time and one of the three best fighters ever to compete in MMA. In December 2013, shortly after a controversial decision victory over Johny Hendricks, St-Pierre vacated his welterweight championship and walked away from the sport. He never called it a retirement, but odds of his return grew longer with each passing day.

That is, until November, when boxing trainer Freddie Roach told media that St-Pierre would be running a test camp to gauge his desire to return. Since, speculation of a St-Pierre return has grown, notably with UFC President Dana White being less dismissive of its chances.

It’s been two-plus year’s since St-Pierre’s last match. After time off to repair a torn ACL in 2011 and 2012, he returned a strikingly more human fighter, absorbing more strikes in three bouts than he had in nearly his entire career prior to that point. Although some names are the same, he would return to a different division than the one he left; a decline in the speed and timing of his once unstoppable takedowns would put him at risk.

However, there would be no denying St-Pierre a championship match as soon as he pleased. Not only did he leave as the champion, he departed as the single biggest drawing card in the company. He supersedes the promise to Woodley, Condit’s right to avenge his controversial loss, and Wonderboy’s statement. If St-Pierre returns and wants an immediate title match, he’ll get one. Even if he doesn’t want an immediate title match, the UFC will push him in that direction. (A dream match with Anderson Silva, however attractive, remains supremely unlikely.)

When Tyron Woodley accepted the UFC’s word and patiently waited for a title shot, he was betting that a lot of potential happenings would not come to fruition. He bet that Lawler vs. Condit wouldn’t be a great, close, controversial fight. He bet that a new contender, previously unseen in the rearview mirror, wouldn’t leap forward with a dynamic performance against an elite contender. He bet that Georges St-Pierre’s fire to compete wouldn’t reignite. They were bad bets.

It remains unclear who will be next for welterweight champion Robbie Lawler. Condit and Thompson put forth strong arguments. St-Pierre needs no argument. Woodley is a great fighter, but his argument has weakened in inactivity. I do not know who is next in line for the welterweight title, nor could I even pick the favorite with any degree of confidence, but I can state with confidence that Woodley is the longshot of the four. While his hopes are golden, the UFC’s promises are anything but.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.

article topics :

Tyron Woodley, UFC, Dan Plunkett