Tyron Woodley: ‘Georges St-Pierre Is The Greatest, I’ll Fight Him At Any Weight’
The UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley underwent surgery on his torn Labrum three weeks ago, but already he’s got his eyes on who he wants to fight when he returns, Georges St-Pierre.
The Canadian is currently side-lined with his own medical issues, but Woodley seemingly only has eyes on a fight with the former UFC middleweight champion. Speaking backstage at UFC Fight Night 124 this weekend, Woodley spoke of his desire to fight St-Pierre.
“I really want to fight Georges St-Pierre,” Woodley said. “That’s my number one fight. You can’t be the welterweight champion and be the G.O.A.T right now. He’s the greatest welterweight of all time, I can’t claim that yet. Until I beat him, he’s the number one that’s ever fought in the Octagon.
“That’s my legacy. People can call it a money fight, they can call it a super fight, you can call it whatever the hell you want to, but if he’s still fighting, he needs to come and see me. That’s my number one fight.”
When was asked what would happen if St-Pierre refused to fight him, Woodley didn’t hesitate to say that it would automatically elevate him above the two weight UFC champion.
“Then he’s forfeited that status,” Woodley said. “I will become the G.O.A.T and I’ll take out all these whippersnappers. You got Usman, you got Till, you got such-and-such, you got RDA, you got a lot of guys out there who are giving a lot of excitement to the sport, and I really do feel like the welterweight division is the deepest division. It’s action-packed and we’ve always got new prospects trying to emerge.
“Once the deck is shuffled and once I clearly emerges as the number one guy then…. I’m the only one fighting number one contenders, I don’t know if you guys noticed that recently. I fought four world title fights in 12 months, but outside of maybe one or two guys, I’m the only one that’s fighting true number one contenders.”
With St-Pierre seemingly reluctant to fight in just on weight division, Woodley said that he’d happily fight him at any weight class and that he be willing to jump up to middleweight to get the opportunity to take him on.
“I don’t care, I’ll fight him at any weight,” Woodley said. “We don’t have to fight at welterweight. We can fight at 185 or 180, [but] I don’t think Georges particularly wants to go and defend another belt. There’s too many young guys in the sport. He not only needed some time to himself, but he also mentioned some concussions and.
“If you look at some of the guys that are high level wrestlers that can stop shots, with a guy like me, it’s going to be very difficult to take me down and I’m not that stat guy, but I think I’ve got the highest takedown defence in the UFC, maybe even the history of the sport. It’s going to be very hard to take me down, but not just because of that, but because I’ve studied Georges for so many years, I know his style so well, it’s going to be really impossible for him to put me on the canvas and then he’s got to deal with my power and he’s had problems with that against Johny [Hendricks] and other guys. It’s really a problem for his game plan.”
