2. Don’t discount Tyron Woodley
Speaking of [autotag]Tyron Woodley[/autotag], let’s ease up on the guy just a tad. Yes, he lost convincingly, but any negative feedback about his performance should be paired with an equal or additional level of praise for what Burns did.
Burns jumped all over Woodley in the first round and nearly finished the former champ. Woodley kept himself in the fight for all 25 minutes, but he could never get out of first gear and sway momentum in his direction. Now “The Chosen One” finds himself on a two-fight skid for the first time in his illustrious career.
Woodley has lost 10 consecutive rounds between Burns and when he dropped the 170-pound belt to Usman at UFC 235 in March 2019. That statistic combined with his age of 38 is going to raise some valid questions about Woodley’s future in the sport.
It’s not time to write him off just yet, though. Woodley was coming from a career-long layoff, a very static training camp in which he experienced a date postponement and opponent switch, and he simply met a beast in Burns. That doesn’t suddenly make Woodley irrelevant, though. There’s still some meaningful fights out there for him that are quite winnable, too.
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