Former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley is never going to live down the allegations of taking money to lose the second Jake Paul fight. But he continues to deny it enthusiastically!
While the first fight was a split-decision loss for Woodley, the second saw him get knocked out at 2 minutes and 12 seconds into the 6th round. This essentially put Paul on a pedestal and made him a ‘legitimate’ contender, so to speak. So, needless to say, the former UFC champion gets asked about his intentions a lot.
And this is exactly what happened when Woodley made an appearance on Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson’s podcast. Jackson joked about the matter and asked Woodley to blink twice if he actually threw the fight. Woodley admitted to being asked that a lot and asked Rampage in return if he would do it for $2 million.
“That ain’t enough money. For what I got paid for that Jake fight, for me to do that, I gotta be willing to walk away for good and set me up for a while. Not for life but… $20 million or something where I can invest it. I am too solid of a guy to even have someone walk up to me and ask.
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Woodley is a decorated UFC champion with four successful title defenses. He won the UFC welterweight title against a legend like Robbie Lawler at UFC 2o1 in 2016. He would go on to defend it twice against Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thomson, and once each against Demian Maia and Darren Hill.
It would take Kamaru Usman to take the title away from him in 2019 at UFC in a closely contested fight that would go to the wire in the 5th round and would have to be decided by a judges’ scorecard.
So, why did the Paul fight go the way it did?
Well, to put it delicately Woodley is a wrestler and a fairly good one at that. He won the Missouri 4A State Wrestling Championship in 2000. He picked up mixed martial arts along the way, which allowed him to add striking to his arsenal. But boxing is a different art altogether.
Why was his first fight against Paul so closely contested then?
It was Jake’s third professional fight and he had only fought YouTubers before this and he had looked bad while he was at it. It was a very different Jake than the ones seen in the Tyson fight or the Tommy Fury fight for that matter.
Besides, Woodley had a full camp for their first bout. However, when they fought the second time, Jake was preparing for Fury, a much tougher opponent.
Unfortunately, Fury pulled out at the 11th hour due to a reported injury and Woodley would step in on really short notice and end up paying a very steep price for it.
