Tyrone Woodley on losing to Colby Covington: “I don’t know what happened”

Tyron Woodley offers no excuses for his performance against Colby Covington in UFC Vegas 11, but the loss is definitely stinging.

In the better part of the four-round rounds, the former welterweight champion struggled to keep his back off the cage, consistently defending attempts at eliminations and the relentless pace of Covington.

The fight ended after Covington planted Woodley on the mat in the fifth round, and a rib injury forced him to stop the competition.

Woodley was not shown at the UFC Vegas 11 post-fight press conference, but he took to Instagram to get a short video clip as he was transported to a local hospital to check for his injuries. While he did not have a diagnosis yet, Woodley said he “appeared in a rib,” which ultimately led to him losing TKO.

Given how the battle had been conducted, Woodley was at a loss as to what went wrong. But he knows being caught in Covington was the last thing he wanted.

“I appreciate you guys – I love you guys,” Woodley said during the video. “It didn’t go the way I wanted. The last person I wanted to lose.

“I don’t know what happened f ** k. It happened. We have to dust it, dust it and find a way.”

After losing unbeaten in seven successive fights, including five for the title, Woodley has now dropped three times in a row while losing 14 straight matches to Covington, Camaro Osman and Gilbert Burns.

Although his losses came against the top three UFC ranked weight players at the moment, Woodley was not a major factor in any of those confrontations, as he fell into two lopsided decisions and then lost by TKO on Saturday night.

It’s impossible to say where Woodley is going from here, but UFC President Dana White thinks it’s time for the former welterweight champion to start thinking about the end of his fighting career.

“I think he should start thinking about putting it down,” White said of Woodley during the post-battle press conference. “He had a great career, he made a great career.”