Speaking to Action Network for an exclusive interview, former welterweight king Tyron Woodley says Ilia Topuria should not entertain a Paddy Pimblett match-up as it will only serve to further Pimblett’s brand. Woodley instead backs Topuria to cross the divide between MMA and boxing to face Brit Conor Benn.
The American also says UFC’s new deal with Paramount will benefit fighters, picks Dricus Du Plessis to beat Khamzat Chimaev, and believes his former opponent, Jake Paul, can knock out Anthony Joshua.
Q. Can Dricus Du Plessis beat Khamzat Chimaev?
Khamzat is good, but he’s not great. He could be, and likely will be, but he’s not great right now he’s not. DDP has to be a spoiler, stay focused. He’s shown up in fights and beaten people like Stye Bender. He’s kind of like the underdog, the people’s champion; he doesn’t talk much trash but he wins a lot of fights. I think he could win this fight.
I'mma go DDP just because I hate when they try to force-feed a star, I hate when they try to groom somebody into something. You let them fight. Let them sort out what they're gonna do. And I feel like there’s been a lot of grooming of him, and there's been a lot of talk, and a lot of hype. I give him his credit, but I'mma just play the wild card, I'm gonna go with DDP.
Q. Does Paddy Pimblett have a chance against Ilia Topuria?
Paddy’s bark is louder than his bite. He’s got a decent bite, but his bark is a little louder. Your bark shouldn’t be louder than your bite. I was more the type to let you find out.
You think Robbie Lawler is the boogeyman? Back-to-back Fighter of the Year, Hall-of-Fame fights against Carlos Condit, everybody’s scared of him — I’ll show you. Same with Carlos Condit, nobody wanted to strike with him, nobody could stop him. I let the actions speak up.
If I was Ilia, I wouldn’t even entertain that kid. He’s giving him too much attention. Paddy shouldn’t even be in the conversation to fight Ilia. Ilia’s a man at the end of the day, if you talk trash to him, he’ll step up and say, 'I’ll knock you out.' But that’s feeding into Paddy’s gimmick.
He might not even think he can beat you, but if he fights you, he makes more money, gets more eyeballs, and if he keeps it close, people will say, 'Oh, he did well.' Even in a loss, his brand grows, so he’s using you to brand-jump, coat-tailing your brand. Paddy shouldn’t even be in that conversation to fight him.
Q. Does Ilia Topuria have a shot at making it as a professional boxer?
I’m watching what he’s doing — his setups, his power. He shortens his punches up close, extends when he’s long, uses feints, jabs, power in both hands, presses forward, great defense.
I think he could do damage in boxing. He could even jump straight in against top guys in his weight. I don’t know the exact weight, but I think he can be a force. I think Ilia would beat Conor Benn. Benn’s got power too, but Ilia’s cleaner, sharper, more technical, with the same power. Benn’s got a lot of power, but I’d say Ilia stops him. I’d got on record to say Ilia Topuria would stop Conor Benn, and I don’t think it would take more than four rounds.
It would take the first three to adjust to boxing clinching, range and distance, but between rounds three and four, I think he knocks him unconscious.
Q. Would you fight Conor Benn?
Conor Benn is a little bit lighter, but for the right bag, I'll fight him. He is kind of messy to me. I think he's kind of like a fighter that fought in the UFC, 'Hands of Stone.'
I forgot his name, but he threw everything from the waist. Real powerful. But with good straight punches and jabs and timing and reach, he was just walking into shots.
I can't see me fighting Benn, I think that's a fight for Ilia, because he kind of mentioned Ilia. But he did kind of say something about MMA fighters trying to fight boxers. Man, if he wanted to fight, yeah, I'll fight his little hobbit ass.
Q. Could Jake Paul knock out Anthony Joshua if he landed flush?
AJ is a big-ass heavyweight. I just feel like AJ got so much power and experience, and Jake is crazy for even wanting that fight. But like I said before, he is faster, he is probably gonna be more agile, he's probably gonna run around from AJ a little bit and try to get a shot in, but he's still got power.
You can't tell me if he hit AJ flush on the chin there's no chance he could knock him down. There's a big chance he could do that. To be honest, I think he would have a tougher fight against Tyson Fury than AJ. Just style-wise, because Tyson’s going to make him miss, laugh, push him around, outbox him.
When you outbox somebody like that, the anxiety kicks in, ‘Damn, he's just a better boxer.' I feel like power and athleticism, Jake and Anthony are going to be matching for that, who's more athletic and who's more powerful?
If Jake Paul hits Anthony Joshua flush on the face, he can be knocked down. I mean, he can be knocked out too. AJ has been knocked out. I'm not saying Jake's going to win. The fight hasn’t even been made yet, so I'm not in a position to pick. But Jake has power. He has the ability that if he hits you, you can be knocked out.
Q. Is Georges St-Pierre wrong to say the Paramount deal is ‘terrible for fighters’?
I don't think the Paramount deal is terrible. If GSP was in the UFC, it would be terrible for him, he was doing well, 500,000, 600,000, a million [buys]. He was doing well with pay-per-view. These other fighters that are champions aren't breaking the threshold, especially when it’s not the old-school model of ordering with a remote control for $59.99.
The average person, 50, 60, 70 years old, doesn’t know how to work the ESPN Plus app. They're having difficulty even figuring out how to stream and put it on their television. They lost some of the people where the technology was too much, and they weren’t moving the needle. There are fights happening every week — so many UFC fights, so many other fights, so many options.
The average fighter, I don't want to throw names out because I don't want to diss anybody, but a Merab [Dvalishvili] or someone like that, they're not going to break over 200,000 or 300,000 buys.
The UFC has to get behind you for you to become a big draw. You can't become that by yourself. It's impossible. Even Topuria — they got behind him. You saw him walking out to soccer games. He didn’t just call and ask to walk out; the UFC set that up. You don't get to 12 million followers by yourself; they put the machine behind you.
Most fighters were never going to get pay-per-view anyway. They should be thankful that now people can see them for free, and more people can get to know them. They should put their own money behind their brands. When you get a chance to be seen for free, have your own stuff to show people — what you stand for, why it's important to watch you, your background, your 'why,' your spirit. Things unique about you — fashion, cars, esports, whatever you do outside fighting.
Q. Can you compare your area to the current crop of welterweights?
To be quite frank, during the era that I was a champion, during the era that GSP was a champion, during the era that Johnny Hendricks was a champion, these guys [current ranked welterweights] would've been in the mix.
When you're thinking about Diaz, me, you're thinking about Lawler, you're thinking about Johnny, like, these guys would have been on that Jake Ellenberger, or Mark Chapman level, so I feel like the level that we were at, and the fighters that were fighting at that time, we were on a different level.
Q. Would Jack Della Madalena have been a top-10 fighter in your era?
He [Jack Della Madalena] wouldn't even have been in my crosshairs. I wouldn't have been looking at him in the scope. He wouldn't have gone through Carlos. He definitely wouldn't have gotten through Robbie. Wonderboy does better against pure strikers than all of us. His timing and his abilities, just to get in-out real quick, he would have beaten him.
I think he's a good fighter. I never take away from people, it's hard to win a championship, just because there's so much pressure. But I can just think of 10 people in my division at that time that was the champion that would have beaten him.
Q. Does Islam Makhachev beat JDM?
I think Islam wins. But once again, if Islam came up [in weight] and we were sitting there [in my era], he's not winning. I think he would give a better match just because of his wrestling ability, he would have given Wonderboy problems, he would have given Robbie problems, just because of his wrestling.
But if you put Islam Makachev against Johnny Hendricks, he gets knocked out. You put him against me, I think he gets beat, and potentially knocked out. Islam might do okay against GSP, because of the wrestling, but just stylistically, the heavy-handed wrestlers that were in that era, he would have a problem with.
Q. Would beating Tom Aspinall add anything to Jon Jones’ legacy?
Jon is thinking he [Aspinall] doesn't have the bread I got. He doesn't have the legacy I got. I have already beat all the people that I need to beat. Beating him is not gonna make my legacy any stronger, right? To be honest, of all the victories that he's had, it would probably be on the bottom of the list of significant victories, so why am I gonna give this kid an opportunity to fight me and potentially beat me when I've been undefeated all this time?
Q. Why did people think you are an ‘entitled fighter'?
Think about the end of my career, I was really quiet. I didn't go at Dana, I didn't even respond back. People were saying stuff, I never said nothing back, I never replied back, you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, I saw where I was walking into.
I never wanted to be the entitled fighter, the fighter that's always race-baiting, throwing out the race card, everybody's doing me wrong, so when I saw myself walking towards that direction, then I just went mute.
I just said, ‘OK, whatever people think, they think, whatever they want to do, they do.' And, that's kind of the bulk of it. I've had so many conversations with Dana that don't have anything to do with fighting.
Like just talking about, ‘hey, you’re in the movie 'Straight Out of Compton', I love 'Straight Out of Compton.' I was at his son's birthday party, the only UFC fighter there, Kendrick Lamar performing.
I was sitting next to him and his entire family for a Super Bowl. I'm the only UFC fighter. In public we had a big feud, but in private, I may have had one of the most relaxed relationships with Dana.
Q. How close did the GSP fight come?
Nobody wanted to [mess] with me during the time I was in my prime, just to be honest. Georges St. Pierre was asked two or three times to fight me, he didn't want to fight me.
Conor McGregor was flown into Vegas and offered a fight against me. He didn't want to fight me. [Michael] Bisping acted like he wanted to fight me, but he didn't want to fight me.
Nate was offered to fight me. I accepted. I thought he accepted, because why would they bring me the fight first? I would figure they would bring him to fight first.
He said ‘my brand is bigger than his at this moment, and if I lose to him, it's not gonna help me out. This is a win-win for him.'
Q. Did you recently offer GSP a fight?
I offered GSP $5 million to fight me in the Middle East. I had an organization, and we was gonna promote a fight, for me and GSP and he just flat out said, ‘Tyron, I'm not in that space any more, I'm not fighting anymore. I appreciate the offer.'
I said, 'cool, well, if you're not in that space, we're not.' It was nothing disrespectful, because he is the best welterweight of all time. He's the greatest. So why would I not want to fight him?
If I beat Georges St. Pierre, nobody would care about [my losses to] Gilbert Burns, Vincente Luque, Colby Covington, or Kamaru Usman. None of those losses matter. I'm the best welterweight of all time, so I was looking at it from that standpoint. I did think I could beat him. I never got a chance to prove it when I was at my peak.
And, he just declined the fight. And then I turned around and offered Nick Diaz offered him the same amount of money off, $5 million to fight in the Middle East. He liked the message I sent him. He hearted it, but he never replied back.
Q. Who would you like to box next?
If I had a choice I'd box next and I would pick Logan Paul. Logan was annoying me when I was fighting Jake. He was there on the side of the canvas with a damn Polaroid taking pictures. He always had something to say, and I know it's his little brother, but he'd kind of be hating on his little brother a little bit, too.
So it's like, is it more about putting yourself out there and making yourself look big, or is it more about supporting your little brother? I always found it hard to understand which one he was doing.
You'll see me fight one time this year. If not this year in the first quarter of next year, but I'm definitely gearing up. I took some time off and had to rest my body up.
Q. Is Jake Paul right to take legal action against anyone who suggests his fights are fixed?
I think Jake should just let people keep talking [rather than take legal action] because when people keep thinking his fights are fixed, he constantly has to prove himself to everybody, and there's something about having to prove yourself, or prove others wrong.
For me, when things got smooth and easy, it was around the Usman fight, and I felt like I was getting promoted the right way, and I felt like I was getting the love, and it felt kind of weird.
[My advice to Jake is] kind of stay in the spot where you thrive the most, and I feel like when people are second-guessing you and are saying that you're throwing fights and whatever, I would just keep doing that, because when it's all said and done, you're not throwing fights.
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