Much like his three previous outings in the cage, it wasn’t Tyron Woodley’s night on Saturday.
The former UFC welterweight champion dropped every round en route to a fifth-round TKO defeat he suffered when he injured a rib during a ground transition with Colby Covington in their main event fight inside the UFC’s Apex facility. In doing so, that marks the third successive fight in which Woodley has been shut out on the scorecards after being routed on points by Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman in his prior two fights.
This one may hurt a little more, however. The fight brought a conclusion to more than two years of back-and-forth verbal jabs between the two rivals, but as much as the defeat pains him Woodley maintains he won’t be giving up or walking away from the sport — despite what UFC president Dana White suggested on Saturday night.
“I’m not retiring – I’m not giving it up,” Woodley said, speaking on Instagram Live. “I’m not switching all my coaches up. I’m not changing the continent I live on. I’m not doing all that.
“Some shit didn’t happen and guess what? I don’t know why it didn’t happen. I did everything to make it happen. Now we just take a deep breath and see what’s next.”
Woodley’s next steps remain unclear after his third defeat on the bounce but it should be noted that Dana White called for the 38-year-old former champ to consider retirement.
