Tyron Woodley (carefully) explains why 'life was a little bit better' before becoming UFC champ

LAS VEGAS – Tyron Woodley was simply explaining the meaning behind his walkout song choice for UFC 209  (“I Ain’t Turning Back” by Thi’sl) when he uttered a sentence that he seemed to know right away would take some careful following up.

“When I talk about carrying my shield and going into battle, and I think about all the distractions, all the ways out, all the people that want to see me lose, it’s a lot of pressure,” Woodley(17-3-1 MMA, 7-2-1 UFC) said after narrowly beating Stephen Thompson(13-2-1 MMA, 8-2-1 UFC) in Saturday’s pay-per-view headliner to retain the UFC welterweight title.

“People don’t understand that – you think you got (the belt) and your life is changed. To be honest, my life was a little bit better before I had the belt.”

When asked to elaborate, Woodley first tried to jokingly buy himself some time directing the questions to another reporter, but he then took a breath to “choose his words wisely” before touching on the tricky territory that seems to have become a staple of his relationship with fight fans.

“I just think that it’s a lot of pressure as a champion,” Woodley said. “You’ve got to separate yourself. You want to be the best in the world. You want to wear the gold. It comes with a lot. It comes with a lot on your platter. It comes with a lot of expectations, a lot of obligations. And I feel at a certain level you have a duty, and I feel like part of the time my duty is to, you know, be honest, and if I see something that’s incorrect, speak on it.

“If I see something that’s right, congratulate that as well. And in our society, everyone doesn’t like to hear the truth all the time. And when you speak the truth sometimes, people are either sensitive or insensitive and, as we all know, I see all you guys quiet, don’t want to ask me the wrong questions. Sometimes I get a little bit of a bad rep for just speaking up on things I think are true.”

While he didn’t use the words specifically, Woodley seemed to be alluding to the backlash that his remarks around racial prejudice in MMA have sparked. While the champ is not the only black athlete to address how racial dynamics still affect their careers, fans certainly had some strong reactions to his take on an issue that, he’s clarified, isn’t an MMA-exclusive problem as much as it is a systemic one that spills in particular ways into the sport.

“I think the fans are human, and they have their own mind,” Woodley said on a previous occasion. “If someone doesn’t like a person because of their skin color – it doesn’t matter if you fight or you deliver mail – they’re going to have that opinion. … I don’t say MMA fans are racist at all; what I said is that fans are opinionated, especially because we’re the only professional sport to give them that access. So these people already have these ideas in their mind.”

His claims have been vehemently rebuffed by UFC President Dana White, who called Woodley a “bit of a drama queen” and said the welterweight champion’s issues to connect with the MMA fan base stem more from his approach to fighting than anything else.

Woodley’s reaction to public pressure was also a topic for different reasons after Saturday’s scrap with Thompson, which got boos from the Las Vegas crowd at T-Mobile Arena due to its lack of action. In that regard, Woodley acknowledged the importance of fans to the sport, but also pointed out that they’re not the ones with everything on the line.

“The fans can also tap in, I’ll pause the fight, they can enter the cage, I’ll exit the cage, and they can show me how to do it better,” Woodley said, before explaining his cautious approach against the dangerous challenger.

“At the end of the day, if I worried about what the fans said, I wouldn’t be in this position right now. I love the fans. They make our sport. They make the UFC what it is, but I’m the person that’s in there fighting, and this is the toughest division in the world.”

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