ST. LOUIS — Tyron Woodley was all of eight weeks old when his mother delivered him to the blind woman sitting at the back of the church.
"Bring me that boy," came the command. So it was done.
The trio were the last people to leave on a mid-June day in 1982, and Deborah Woodley, as God-fearing a woman as they come, did as her aunt requested. Tyron was then hoisted above his great-aunt's head.
"God, give him the strength of Samson and the wisdom of Solomon," she said. "That’s a prophesy. I’m prophesying over him."
As Deborah processed it, the implications were clear: Well before the current UFC welterweight champion selected "The Chosen One" as his fighting nickname, Tyron had already been anointed as such.
"I knew he was," Deborah told Bleacher Report last week.
Around Tyron's first birthday, he offered a preview of his great-aunt’s visions, lifting 10-pound dumbbells to the amazement of his mother—so much so that 33 years later, she recounted the scene to a large crowd that had congregated to celebrate her son.
There were other signs. When Deborah took Tyron to the pediatrician, she would get scolded because her infant boy had too much muscle and not enough fat on his frame.
"She didn’t think I was giving him enough milk," Deborah said. "And I was. I was breastfeeding."
Several years later, one of Deborah’s friends brought her son over for a visit. He practiced karate and had outgrown his uniform, so it was handed down to Tyron. He wore it while kicking a hole into the concrete of their basement wall.
Tyron was indeed a physical specimen, yet this wasn’t going to be the only type of strength he needed to exhibit in life. Prophesy alone wouldn’t determine his fate, not in the face of life’s circumstances, which could have easily derailed him.
Built on a frame of determination, faith and smarts, Woodley, one of 13 kids raised in a modest four-bedroom home in Ferguson, Missouri, doesn’t come off like a long shot even if in many ways he is.
After earning a degree in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri, where he captained the wrestling team for three years and helped propel a flailing program into one that commands respect, Deborah thought her son was crazy to choose a life of fighting. The truth is, it chose him. When he told her he thought he could excel, that there was a real future for him in this world, she did what she always had: supported him in every way imaginable.
"I’ve always told my children, aim beyond the moon," Deborah said. "If you fall, you’ll fall on top of it."
The results of Woodley’s ordained gifts combined with his mother's work ethic produced his most recent spectacle this July. The 34-year-old mass of fast-twitch muscle closed the distance on Robbie Lawler and starched the dominant UFC champion with a devastating right hand. It was a stunning outcome, not for the result but rather the explosive thrust that precipitated it. And even this was not shocking because Woodley (16-3) is well-known to be capable of such things; it's just that the sight of them still makes jaws drop.
On Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in the co-main event of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s eagerly anticipated return to New York following a 19-year ban in the state, Woodley has his next opportunity to shoot for the moon. Entering the Octagon against dynamic challenger Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson (13-1), the betting odds place Woodley as the dark horse for the fifth time in six fights, per Odds Shark. He has repeatedly found satisfaction in proving them wrong and said this time will be no different.
"I’ve always felt like the underdog," Woodley said.
James Knowles III was the senior leader of the McCluer High School wrestling team when Tyron Woodley showed up intent on doing something that hadn’t been done in a quarter-century.
When Woodley was in the seventh grade, he was told there was no way he could win a state wrestling title at McCluer. The comment came from a member of the McCluer team that last took a state crown in 1968.
"You know I’m about to wrestle there?" a confused Woodley responded.
He took the moment as a personal slight and never forgot. It fed him.
Wrestling in the inner city is generally an iffy proposition. It’s an easy sport for school districts not to fund, and the season runs the same time of the year as basketball. Everyone wants to be like LeBron James. The thing about wrestling, it’s not a game. Pickup wrestling isn't really a thing. In truth, it’s more of a martial art, and competitive grappling isn’t for most people. There’s no showing up half-cocked. Participants really have to want to do it, like deep-down desire.
And then there are the uniforms. The singlet. One of Woodley’s trainers, retired fighter Din Thomas, gave up wrestling in his youth because he couldn’t bring himself to put on the tight-fitting one-piece.
"We had to work our butts off to be able to afford new uniforms and pay for camps," Knowles said. "A lot of other school districts' parents shell out money to send their kids off to camps. To high-priced clinics so their kids know all of the newest techniques. These are things we didn’t have. If we did, it meant we went out and worked for it, selling candy and fundraising."
Deborah Woodley supported her son's wrestling every way she could, just as she did for her other kids’ interests. The dancer and choreographer. The cosmetologist. The writer and artist. The nurse. The saleswoman. The personal assistant who runs Tyron's business. They all received Deborah's support, same with their adopted cousin and several half-brothers.
Despite working three jobs, sometimes pulling triple shifts, Tyron said his mom only missed one or two wrestling meets ever. These days, she attends all of his fights, and she will be in New York when he fights Thompson.
"I had to do what I had to do," she said. "No sleep."
Tyron’s father left him on his 10th birthday. The man lived within jogging distance. They crossed paths at the grocery store. But Woodley never turned emotional about it. He was more stone-faced than anything, and he admitted to channeling whatever angst he felt into wrestling. Between being told he couldn’t win and the intense work ethic instilled by his mother, Woodley’s wrestling took off at McCluer.
"He excelled at athletics, but he was not somebody who walked onto the wrestling mat as a natural," said Knowles, who at the age of 31 became the youngest person elected to the mayorship in Ferguson, a post he held in 2014 as civil unrest exposed fault lines between the community and the law enforcement tasked with protecting it. "He was naturally physically gifted, but he worked his butt off to be successful.
"I was a 189-pounder. Tyron was 140, maybe 135. We played king of the mat, and the winner stays in the middle. Sometimes, Tyron would be in the middle when I got out there.
"To me, what stood out was his perseverance. He was not going to fall out on his own. He was going to have to be taken out. That mentality is what helped him persevere to the level that he’s at today. It didn’t come because he was born with it, per se. He was born with some but worked for the rest."
During Woodley's senior year, he posted a perfect 48-0 record at 165 pounds and didn’t cede a point unless he allowed an opponent to regain his feet. Upon capturing the state title, he made sure to tell the man who said it couldn't be done that he thought about that statement every year until he won.
A top-five wrestling recruit out of high school, Woodley signed with the University of Nebraska on a scholarship that would have paid for 75 percent of his tuition. That plan changed when the head coach, Tim Neumann, was forced to resign amid allegations that he improperly paid wrestlers cash when their scholarship money ran out. That’s how Woodley ended up at the University of Missouri, a program that was considered a layup around the Big 12 until coach Brian Smith was hired to change the culture.
"It was not only that he was a talented wrestler. He had a great work ethic," Smith said. "But it was also about what was going on with the program and the type of person he was with his leadership. It elevated our program. It brought other people to our program with recruits. They would say, 'Hey, if Woodley is there—he’s a great person, good kid, good student—this is where we want to be.'
"He made the most of it. His toughest year was his junior year. That was the year he didn’t All-American. He learned a lot from that year. He had had his oldest son born that year. I knew at one point he was afraid to tell me he was having a baby. I told him, 'There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re going to love this child, and you’re going to be a great father, too.' I said, 'We’re going to have to work through it.'"
In 2003, Woodley became the first Missouri wrestler to claim a Big 12 Conference title. He served as the Mizzou wrestling captain for three years and scored All-American status twice. After Woodley stopped Lawler in the fastest welterweight title fight finish in UFC history, Smith texted him congratulations. Woodley was grateful, though he reminded his former coach that he still hadn’t gotten over not winning an NCAA title.
Wrestling seemed to be Woodley’s future. After college, he focused on earning a graduate degree and coaching. Assisting at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for $30,000 a year was less than glamorous work, which would have been fine, but Woodley’s shoulder needed surgery, and he had gotten used to the big support network that comes with being at a major program. Any chance he had of wrestling internationally was gone unless he could get it repaired, and continuing on the path he was on wouldn’t get it done.
Woodley met MMA trainer Wade Rome, who promised to secure the wrestler health insurance if he worked around his American Top Team-affiliated gym in Columbia, Missouri. In 2007, Woodley had spent enough time at the gym to go under the knife. He had already dabbled in MMA, making his amateur debut two years earlier. Woodley mostly served as a sparring dummy for some of ATT’s top fighters. They learned how to deal with a big, powerful wrestler. He learned how to take punishment.
"He was pretty open, especially when we first started working together," retired fighter Yves Edwards said. "His boxing definitely wasn’t what it is now. He couldn’t throw a punch beyond the fact that he was an explosive athlete. He could punch you and hit you, but technically, he couldn’t put combinations together with proper technique."
Again Woodley went to work with the desire to be his best.
"I think a kid from the inner city, if I had to recruit, is the ideal person for MMA," Woodley said. "They’d be less likely to be affected by hard work. They’d be less likely to not appreciate something when someone is helping them out, because they probably don’t have a ton of stuff. And all the stuff that encompasses their environment. All the struggles. All the heartache. All the pain. All the things they’ve had to actually endure to just not die, I think those things would make them think about training differently. I think about training differently."
Nearly a decade later, Woodley is considered among the most dynamic fighters in the UFC. That wasn’t enough, though, to stop him from feeling like he was spectating greatness. It was time to move to the next level of the game.
One of the few criticisms levied against Woodley from the people who know him best is that he sometimes fell victim to a mental block.
Ben Askren followed Woodley to Missouri, and on several occasions, he challenged Woodley's authority as team leader. For Askren, a two-time NCAA champion and member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic wrestling team, it was a matter of pushing his teammates to their absolute best. Eventually, he and Woodley developed a bond that formed after they shared some hard training sessions on the mat.
"I think a lot of us felt he had the potential to be even better, and I think there were mental things holding him back," Askren said of Woodley. "Winning the UFC title got him over the hump there.
"He likes everything to be the way it should be, almost too perfect. A lot of times in athletics, it’s not about who’s more perfect or who has better technique, it’s about who’s going to go execute when it’s time to get down and dirty."
It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes for the sweat pouring from Woodley’s 5'9" frame to soak through several layers of clothes. After spending the majority of his training camp in Milwaukee preparing for Thompson, The Chosen One returned home for one final weekend ahead of his first UFC title defense on Nov. 12. It would be a busy few days in St. Louis before leaving for New York, and he was just starting to shed weight to reach the welterweight division’s 170-pound limit.
"Did you hear?" Woodley said during the middle of a 25-minute circuit-training session. "USADA tested me, and I came back positive for hard work and beast-like characteristics."
In an era when UFC fighters are regularly caught with banned substances in their systems as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency exerts its influence over MMA’s top promotion, Woodley says it’s been two years since he ingested a nutritional supplement. Looking at him with his shirt off, it’s hard to believe that the only tub of protein powder in his home, a beautiful property that feels about as far removed from Ferguson as one can get, met its expiration date in 2015. Maybe that’s because for as long as Woodley can remember, his physical gifts were honed by old-fashioned hard work.
This is what he says. This is what the people around him say. Everything worth having needs to be earned.
After his training concluded for the day, Woodley leaned against the wall of his gym, an American Top Team-affiliated academy in the St. Louis suburb of Brentwood. This is the gym’s second location, and the front lobby is under construction. On the list of things he is grateful for, owning a training facility is near the top. And not just because one of the best fighters in MMA needs a hideout location close to home. This is bigger than him.
"I had kids in there that were addicted to heroin, and the gym became their sanctuary," Woodley said. "If they didn’t have the gym, they felt like they would go back to using. I’ve had families that had nothing in common, this was the one thing they felt like they could do together. I’ve had people that lost 400 pounds in there. Low self-esteem. All sorts of things. As an athlete, I thought if I moved, I was failing. But as a businessman, it was stupid for me to stay in there and eat up that monthly overhead."
That overhead was nearly $12,000 a month, totaling close to $500,000. His business partner and one of his biggest fans, Tim Sansone, a St. Louis real estate developer, never wavered in his commitment to Woodley or the facility.
Woodley met Sansone after he began scouting locations for a gym. They hit it off, and almost immediately Woodley began teaching Sansone's children. Sansone Saturdays, they called it.
Soon enough, Sansone felt comfortable offering the fighter a deal. For half of Woodley's future earnings, he would open a gym with him. Woodley passed because he felt big-money fights would come and it didn't make sense to give that much away. Sansone was impressed. The real estate developer attempted to line up investors for Woodley for a couple of years until Sansone realized he was the right person to partner with Tyron.
“He said back then that he would be world champion and he believed it," Sansone said. "It was infectious. I got caught up in it. It felt right. I liked him a lot. He was the kind of guy I wanted my kids to meet and train with. The guy has been straightforward and honest with a high degree of integrity since I met him.
"One thing I know in business, it does not matter where you come from at all. It matters what kind of effort you’re willing to put forth. If you’re honest and willing to put in the time, you’re going to do well. I was just as fortunate to run into him as he was to run into me."
"When he makes up his mind, that’s just what’s going to happen," said Edwards, who advised Woodley against opening his own place. "That’s what he’s going to do and go all-in. To do that, you have to be driven and committed, and I think there’s a part where he's not going to listen to naysayers and try to prove them wrong. It’s unspoken, but that kind of drive makes you seem like you’re hardheaded and stubborn. When you don’t know someone, and sometimes even if you do, that’s something that sours you to a person."
Unspoken or outspoken, Woodley has had a knack for rubbing people in MMA the wrong way since he jumped into the sport in 2009. The people who know him best bring up his infectious sense of humor, but it hardly ever translates when he speaks in public. As his profile has grown, so has the recognition that words have consequences.
"You need to think before you speak," Woodley said, "and if I say something, I’m not taking it back. I’m going to stand on it, 10 toes down. If it becomes a situation where people don’t like it, I’m OK with that. You also have to realize you can’t force someone to have the same mindset as you, to think the way you think. They have their own life experiences, and that’s probably why they’re geared a certain way, and also, you can’t fix stupid.
"There’s some ignorant people in the world, and if I spend time trying to convince people to think like me, I’ll be wasting valuable time I could use to be growing my business, perfecting my craft as a fighter, watching film, studying or just enjoying time with my family. Or just sleeping. Those are things that are way more important than troll-smashing on the internet."
"Say anything, and you come off looking like Louis Farrakhan," Thomas said.
Woodley has taken the time to reflect on how he’s perceived. Wondering what he can and can’t say. Discussing double standards that let certain champions get away with speaking in tones he doesn't believe he can. Race baiting. These are things that make Woodley different than other champions in the UFC and unique even among African-American competitors.
At a time when black athletes have cast aside the tired notion of "shut up and play" for stand up and speak, Woodley finds himself in a unique spot, one he seems especially qualified for and leery of.
"I get n-bombed, or called a monkey or coon every single day," Woodley said, noting that for every person who unleashes this type of hate on him, there are 20 others who offer words of encouragement.
St. Louis hasn’t fully embraced Tyron Woodley yet. With a win over Thompson on Saturday, that might change. For a man who seems to be a natural ambassador for the city and its residents, particularly the urban community, that's the hope.
"It’s really important that people recognize that there are people in this country, especially people in this area here, who grew up with a lot of the same hurdles in life as Tyron," said Mayor Knowles. "There’s a lot of people who have undergone many of the same obstacles and challenges that Tyron has. And someone like Tyron, who has not only been able to work and become successful for himself, but remain grounded and understand the importance of family and community...that’s huge.
"Someone who has grown up in the area, I think he’s somebody who can relate to people [because] he’s had similar experiences that people are upset about. Speak out about the experiences and hurdles. The disparities that exist like this and all across this country. Tyron can speak out about that, having experienced all those same sorts of things while also speaking out about how he overcame them. And how maybe as a community and region we can work to overcome them. I think he’s a great spokesman for that. Clearly, he has a perspective that needs to be heard."
If Woodley is going to become the kind of champion who generates headlines and pay-per-view dollars for the UFC, the solution might be in unlocking African-American interest in mixed martial arts. As far as combat sports go, the black community at large tends to gravitate toward boxing. Woodley said he hopes to change that dynamic.
Thus far, the UFC has displayed little interest in promoting Woodley any differently than it does other fighters who are successful but don't quite move the proverbial needle. So Woodley has taken it upon himself to get his name out there. He's invested in his brand the last couple of years and hopes the UFC will see it as an exercise in gaining momentum.
"If I was his fight promoter, I would sell him as here’s a guy that came from some of the toughest circumstances that anyone in the country could come from. He made no excuses. He looked for no breaks. No handouts. No nothing. He made his own luck," said Sansone. "He chose his own career path. He didn’t let anyone tell him what to do or what not to do. He was smart and put in the work. I would say look at what’s possible. Whether it’s the African-American community or anybody in this country, look at what this country allows for if someone is willing to put in the time and work. Nobody can outwork him. To me, that’s the key."
Winning, of course, is the most likely way to open doors. If Woodley does his job in the Octagon, all he can hope for is a small push from his promoter.
"It’s a big gap missing with the urban community," Woodley said. "That’s a community that’s been driven into the boxing arena for so many years. When Floyd Mayweather retired, it was a perfect opportunity for the UFC to educate the urban community on what MMA is. Still to this day, they think it’s just crazy cagefighting with mostly Caucasian fighters and sprinkles of brothers here and there. They don’t really understand it. I think I’m a person who can help educate."
Last Saturday, as Woodley visited the Premiere Palace Barber Shop & Salon on Florissant Ave., he was greeted like a favored son. They hadn't seen his UFC belt since he won it, and the hefty leather strap was passed between barbers and patrons. Photos were taken. Smiles and laughs were abundant. When Woodley was nine, he scored his first job at Premiere, sweeping and cleaning and doing whatever else was needed. This is where his hustle hit the road. The drive to succeed. To persevere. To do whatever he could to make his life and the lives of the people around him better.
There’s a sense that the community has improved, Knowles said, by building upon what there was so as to be much more inclusive than in the past. Woodley agreed. As for the police, who Woodley claimed had been belligerent to him in the past, there is renewed focus on law enforcement and the underserved segments of the community.
Knowles said the community needs Woodley and other homegrown figures like him. The face of Ferguson, which exploded in 2014, has changed. An influx of new businesses are growing accustomed to the community, and investment has returned a net positive from where Ferguson was two years ago. Socially, the community has a number of events throughout the year that are well-attended by a racially diverse mix of people. Knowles, who is white, said win or lose, Woodley is expected to be honored at an event after Thanksgiving.
"There’s still disparity in this region," Knowles said. "Access to schools, jobs, training, education. Those are larger issues that transcend the Ferguson city limits, but we’re making progress on here. Things are getting much better, but ... the schooling issues [and] economic issues affect the St. Louis County area, and we probably need a voice to help get some attention to those areas."
This sounds like the role for a star. Just don't tell that to Deborah Woodley, whose son has also taken to acting and appeared in a speaking role in Straight Outta Compton.
"I got a problem with that stardom thing," she said. "Really, it’s just work. It’s Tyron's job. For people to recognize you, let your work speak for you. Don’t try to go all out to be recognized. That goes back to reputation. You don’t need all that.
"For him to go do something with it, for him to encourage somebody, help change a young man or woman’s life or mindset about life, he’s always had a good heart."
Deborah moved from Ferguson to troubled East St. Louis. She refuses to let Tyron buy her a home in a safer neighborhood, and she won't leave because she believes this is where God wants her to impact the community.
"I walk up on gangbangers and say what I gotta say," Deborah explained. "I pull up their pants. I tie rope around them. I give people money who look like they’re having a real struggle. And I pray with them. That’s my purpose."
