Tyron Woodley
I've always felt like the underdog.
I think a kid from the inner city, if I had to recruit, is the ideal person for MMA. 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.
USADA tested me, and I came back positive for hard work and beast-like characteristics.
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.
Fighting is the only sport where fans don't understand this is our living.
If I have a chance to make a larger amount of money in a legacy fight against the No. 1 welterweight in history, it makes sense for me to want that fight. You have a lot of pay-per-view money coming to this company. Why shouldn't the champion partake in a piece of that pie?
I guess you could say I fell into it. The main goal was to be successful and to make my family proud. Back then, MMA was just getting started, and there didn't seem to be a ton of rules. It seemed pretty brutal, and I was still pretty focused on wrestling. But I decided to give it a shot.
Fighting, especially at this level, is about getting through adversity. You position yourself mentally to go out and take on obstacles that stand in your way. In the Octagon and in life, you face tough situations and have every chance to quit, but the more adversity you push through, the more likely you are to be successful.
My strength is my unpredictablity. I can wrestle, I can strike, I can move fast, and I do a good job of covering up. And because of my experience, I'm able to put myself in good positions in the ring. The guys I fight, they have to be ready for anything.
The only person I'd be interested in boxing would have to be one of the best of the best. It would have to be, like, Andre Ward.
If you bring in testosterone outside your body, it probably stops producing it because it thinks you're going to get it from the outside.
Guys in our sport bump their gums quite a bit, and they get you to think they're these huge tough guys... they're these gangsters, that they'll fight anybody, anytime. And then when you get in front of a person like me... the crickets start to come out. They don't really wanna fight.
No one should ever bring my muscular build up and think it is going to have something to do with my output in the fight.
God does things on his time. He wanted me to sit down and wanted me to get some other aspects of my life back in order.
I know when you do things systematically, non-stop, and repetition, that's how you make things happen in your life. It's the same thing in faith.
Two men can talk on the phone and maybe not agree on everything but at least respect each other.
Certain athletes show themselves as marketable, and the UFC gets behind them; they help push them. I'm a husband, a father of four, a gym owner, an actor, an analyst, a stuntman, a Christian - every avenue you can take it, I have those layers.
In the past, I said I didn't want to speak on certain issues because the second I said one thing about race, then 'Tyron's playing the race card.' But if you really think about it, what is the race card? The race card is that the man held me down, I had unfair circumstances, and I wasn't able to be successful because I was held down.
What is there not to market? I fight like hell. I'm built a certain way, never taken performance-enhancing drugs.
We also have to think as fighters, celebrities - whatever you want to call us - that we have an obligation to point out stuff that's just completely wrong.
When someone's portraying something they're not to get underneath my skin, I'm just going to funnel that into a great strategy, and I'm going to try to get him out of there quick.
For me, I'm going to try to do the same thing to you no matter if I like you, no matter if I hate you, no matter if it pops up. You're not going to be able to say one thing, and now I really want to kick you.
For me, in general, I've been blessed to have hospitality from several different camps I've been able to train at and get an approval by the American Top Team guys to go anywhere.
I'm a person who believes that if a team that's producing a champion and producing contenders in that same division, then the coaches should be proud of that and pat themselves on the back because they're really creating a dynasty, so that's the way I take it.
How do I have to continue to excessively prove myself and always be the underdog? I don't get the respect I deserve, and that leads me to believe that maybe it is a colour issue.
Look at guys like Demetrious Johnson, who's the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. Why isn't he on the largest pay scale? Why are there people that aren't even champions making more money?
I think the fans are human, and they have their own mind. 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.
One of the things I like most about Roufusport is, really, the culture. A lot of times, you're training in fight camps and running and hitting mitts and sparring. Those things get old kind of quick. I like the fact that they allow fun into the room.
I put myself in a position where I made wrestling an option for me. I don't have to wrestle. I don't have to take another shot for the rest of my life if I don't want to. I have good enough hands, good enough boxing, good enough timing to strike with anybody in our division.
You can't get too excited about your own medicine.
The true game of mixed martial arts is putting your wrestling in there, putting your striking in there, but also being deceiving - hiding behind your punches if you're wrestling and hiding behind your wrestling if you're punching. It's just a matter of blending it all together.
For me, it's just being wiser, finding my opportunities, and really fighting a smart fight.
I hate seeing it; I hate watching it. More importantly, I hate people that don't understand the environment - how small Ferguson is, how it's really a sense of community, and, you know, it's a good place. We shouldn't have been looting and rioting, tearing up our own city.
I'm actually one of the sharper tools in the box that haven't been in the streets like that, but I have family members, close loved ones, that that's all they know.
I ain't Nate Diaz. Nate Diaz is not a welterweight. He did not do well at welterweight because he was undersized, and these dudes are real gorillas in this weight class.
I think that - this is my personal opinion - but sometimes African American athletes are considered overly cocky.
I'm a successful individual and maneuvering in a culture where there are some racists. I still find a way to get to the top, whether I go around or weave through.
Rampage Jackson came to the UFC with a brain. He came to the UFC with a huge following from being in Asia with Pride. He was a personality before he came to the UFC. You don't see them putting marketing money behind him to blow him up.
Have you seen any African American athlete that appeals to the urban market actually bring that market to the MMA?
The thing I hate about mixed martial arts is that it's no longer a sport. It's a big-money business, and it's an entertainment industry.
It's just comical how short-term people's memories are.
If a guy isn't in a position to fight for a world title, or if he's not in a place where I can intercept his road to the title, don't offer him to me. I'm not in this to just fight guys for the sake of fighting. I'm not in this to make friends with the people who work in the organization.
I want to leave a legacy behind. I want the chance to measure myself against the top guys and to have them bring out that champion within me in the Octagon.
For me, I think you can coach guys in martial artsm, and wrestling can be one aspect of it, but I have no desire to be an NCAA wrestling coach again. It was one of the worst coaching jobs I have ever had.
Growing up as a kid, in elementary and middle school, I was always getting in trouble. Always getting suspended. I got suspended for 90 days for fighting beginning my freshman year, so I missed Homecoming, and that's when I turned the page. I went on honor roll and had good grades after that. It was the changing point.
Man, I fought since pre-K. I was small for my grade, but I was tough.
I used to fight every week. Me and my friends used to fight each other, bare knuckle, but then we would be friends that same day. That was our entertainment, though.
I want to fight at middleweight.