Tyron Woodley Demands Apology From Dana White

In an interview with MMA Fighting, Tyron Woodley demanded a public apology from UFC President Dana White for his criticism of Woodley’s UFC 214 fight with Demian Maia. Woodley defended the UFC welterweight title by unanimous decision. White said that Woodley could have finished the fight “in the first round, and if not, he definitely could’ve finished it in the second round.” He added that Woodley “didn’t want to take the risks.”

White added: “You ask fans if they want to see Woodley fight again, I think that will be a flat out no.”

Here are highlights:

On what Dana White said: “I don’t care so much about the fans, but when your job title is promoter, promote your f*cking fighters. 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.”

On wanting an apology: “I’ve done nothing but good stuff for the sport. I’ve done nothing but be a good model for the f*cking organization. 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’s timeout 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 sh*t that people don’t want to be out in the wind. I’m not even kidding about that. They know what I’m referring to. I’m due a public apology. I better get it. I just tired of it. When you think about me and Stephen Thompson’s fight one and fight two, what was really the difference between the first and second fight? There was really not much difference. There was some casing, there was waiting, there was some evaluating, there was some counterpunching, there was me hurting him to a point where the referee looked like he was going to get in. One fight was deemed Fight of the Night at UFC 205 in November. The second fight got crazy scrutiny.”

On Maia not getting criticism: “Nobody scrutinized Demian Maia. ‘Why didn’t you outstrike Tyron? Why didn’t you stand in the pocket with him? Why didn’t you exchange? Why didn’t you push forward and hit him? Why weren’t you able to take him down?’ But I’m the champion, I get the scrutiny. Nobody scrutinized Stephen Thompson. I overheard Dana White tell Stephen Thompson, ‘aw, don’t let the fans get to you. Let them get in there with Tyron Woodley.’ I never heard those remarks. I never got the, ‘hey, aw, I take responsibility for Sage Northcutt’s loss. I knew he had the flu, I shouldn’t have let him fight.’ Everybody else gets excuses made for (them), but I’m the fighter who’s out here against all odds, against all critics, against all naysayers, against all haters, still with my hat on, still with the boos, still with everything, going and doing my job. I just need respect.”