Tyron Woodley once stood at the very top of the UFC welterweight division, but in his own words, he drifted away from the discipline that carried him there. As the longest-reigning champion of the post–Georges St-Pierre era, Woodley now looks back with honesty about the choices that shaped and derailed his prime years.
When St-Pierre vacated the 170-pound title in late 2013, the division entered a new chapter. The belt passed from Johny Hendricks to Robbie Lawler before landing on Woodley’s waist. While each man left a mark, Tyron Woodley held the crown the longest, reigning for 945 days before eventually losing the title to Kamaru Usman.
Despite that success, Woodley admits he didn’t maximize his championship window.
“At that time in my career, I lost focus and I was focusing too much on the lifestyle and too much on the things that came along with it,” Woodley said. “Women, partying not like drinking and drugs and stuff but just being at the Maxim 100 party. I was invited everywhere and I just became a socialite. I feel like that took the place that the focal point should have been in.”
The former champion explained that the distractions didn’t stop his work ethic inside the gym, but they fractured his life outside of it. According to Woodley, he mistakenly believed he could separate his roles as a fighter, father, and husband.
“I just started living two different lives,” Woodley said. “I was a great father. I was a great athlete. I was a terrible husband and I was living a rockstar life. But nobody was outworking me, nobody was out training me and nobody was out parenting me.
“Them things I was better than a fighter, but when it came down to the other spots, I thought those things were separate. They’re not. They’re all combined together. I fooled myself into thinking they were separate and they weren’t.”
Tyron Woodley also revealed that his ambitions stretched far beyond a single title reign. After submitting Darren Till in dominant fashion in 2018, he negotiated a bold plan that included multiple defenses and a move up to middleweight in pursuit of a second UFC belt.
“A lot of people don’t know this, I was the first and maybe the only fighter to negotiate three fights on one call,” Woodley explained. “If I beat Usman, I was supposed to fight Colby Covington. If I beat Colby, I was going to be allowed to go up in weight and fight for that belt. That was my game plan.”
However, Woodley acknowledges that embracing the lifestyle of a champion eventually caught up with him. Growing up in a violent environment, he says success felt like permission to finally reward himself.
“I grew up in the murder capital of the world,” Woodley said. “I was giving myself everything that I didn’t have when I was younger. I was fueling that 10-year-old Tyron that never had name-brand shoes or attention from anybody.”
Even so, Woodley doesn’t speak with regret about his career. He takes pride in his wins over elite names and believes some of those victories altered the trajectory of his opponents.
“Robbie Lawler’s a great. Darren Till was supposed to be the next big thing,” Woodley said. “I beat those guys, and some of them in dominant fashion. I feel like after the Darren Till fight, it changed him.”
Now, Tyron Woodley continues to chase legacy outside the UFC. He returns to the ring for a high-profile boxing bout against UFC Hall of Famer Anderson Silva, featured on the Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua card.
“He’s a legend and I’m chasing legendary status,” Woodley said. “Beating him puts me in that category. This is one of those fights people will say, ‘This is a fight we didn’t know we needed.’ I think it’s going to be the best fight on the card.”
For Tyron Woodley, the story isn’t about rewriting the past. It’s about owning it and proving that his pursuit of greatness isn’t finished yet.
