The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight title will be on the line at UFC 209. Champion Tyron Woodley will once again do battle with Stephen Thompson inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on March 4. The bout will serve as the event’s headliner.
Getting the rematch to come to fruition wasn’t easy. “The Chosen One” had been eyeing a big money fight with Nick Diaz. When that didn’t pan out, Woodley had his sights set on middleweight king Michael Bisping. Those plans fizzled out as well.
The 170-pound champion explained why he decided to have another go with “Wonderboy” (via BJPenn.com):
“You know it is like this. Demian Maia, Nick Diaz, Michael Bisping, Georges St-Pierre, those are all fights I will have in my career. While I am the champion it is important for me to have those fights because defeating all of those guys makes me undeniably the greatest welterweight who has ever fought in the Octagon. So obviously that is important to me. But, I am just trying to pick which fight is the best fight at the right time. You know I wasn’t one hundred percent sold that a rematch with “Wonderboy” was the best thing for me right now. But then I thought let’s do this rematch so that everybody can shut up and we can close this book and move on to another chapter.”
When the two clashed at UFC 205, the fight went the distance and the result was a majority draw. Woodley still feels the decision was off and he should’ve walked out of New York City as the winner.
“Demian Maia obviously, if I was in his position I would be highly upset because I would feel like I am getting the short end of the stick. I would feel like I deserve that title fight and he said it himself, as many people believe, that it wasn’t a draw at UFC 205 and that I won that fight. So now he has to sit in the pocket because of some New York judges, who were probably judging their first MMA fight ever. As you saw from the scorecards it was some really weird judging and on top of the judging, different referees would have stepped in and stopped that fight.”
