Tyron Woodley has had enough of Hector Lombard’s allegations that he ducked their fight.
Lombard recently told reporters in Mexico City that his American Top Team colleague shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose his opponents at will and ducked their match only because he knew he would lose.
Woodley didn’t take the accusation lightly.
“Look at my résumé,” Woodley said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “Look who I fought. I haven’t fought any scrubs. I’ve had a big break. I fought four times in a year. I fought in November, I fought in March, I fought in June, I fought in August, and I’m supposed to turn right back around and fight in November just because somebody wants to fight me?
“The reasons why I didn’t fight, I stayed true to those things. Me and somebody at American Top Team, whether this person is my best friend or whether this person is a complete idiot, I’m not going to fight that person unless it’s for a world title because we can fight somebody else in the division. The division is stacked.”
Lombard wasn’t the only one who threw Woodley under the bus as UFC President Dana White also had harsh words for Woodley after he didn’t accept the Lombard match in August. Now, with Woodley booked against Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 183, the welterweight is talking back.
“I don’t think that freakin’ Kelvin Gastelum is anything less dangerous than Hector Lombard,” Woodley said. “I don’t think Carlos Condit was anything less dangerous than Hector Lombard, and I don’t think Rory MacDonald is any less skilled than Hector Lombard. So for someone to say that I’m scared, I’m ducking (him): I’ve never ducked a fight.
“I’ve accepted fights within 10 minutes. ‘Hey Tyron, we want you to take Hector Lombard’s fight — Mr. Injured, and then all of a sudden healed — we want you to take his fight (at UFC Fight Night 48), and I said let me go train. I’m in Singapore on vacation, I go train for one hour, I get back on the phone and I miraculously saved a card. People don’t remember that. They’ve got a very short-term memory, they’re very conditional, so you’re right, at a certain point I was about to pop off, because I was getting pissed off. If you know where I’m from and you know what I’ve been through in my life, I haven’t always been the person that I am right now. Me being scared of somebody is not very likely, so when people say those things you want to kinda get back at them,” Woodley continued.
