The former UFC welterweight champion Tyron ‘T-Wood’ Woodley has an extensive wrestling background. He came up wrestling from high school and went to University of Missouri to wrestle at the NCAA collegiate level, but he revealed to TMZ Sports that his main love growing up was always boxing.
He even believes at his age with no professional boxing matches under his belt he can fight Mexican super star Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez who is going up to 175lbs to challenge Sergey Kovalev for the WBO light heavyweight championship.
“All I wanted to do is box when I came up.” revealed Woodley. “I just started MMA at 23, so I felt I was a little old to start boxing at that age. But, since I was a kid, that’s the only sport I’ve ever wanted to do. So, most of my training is boxing training.”
Woodley has trained at the Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing club in Hollywood for years under the tutelage of world class trainer Eric Brown.
When the host of TMZ Sports asked T-Wood who he wanted to box in his pro debut, he made sure it wasn’t a slouch.
“I want Canelo, I want a Canelo. I don’t want to go in there fighting ‘Boo Boo Da Fool’ because if he lands a couple shots off on you, everybody is going to say ohhhh Tyron got touched up by this dude that ain’t even a 500 fighter. I want the number one guy.”
The 37-year-old Woodley is confident that if he landed the Canelo fight he would have the perfect game plan going in.
“I mean, I’m not trying to sit there and win twelve rounds, lets be real. His defense is crazy. Slipping uppercuts. Who slips an uppercut? Make you look real stupid. So, I’m throwing all unorthodox. I’m coming and I’m trying to knock him out.”
Woodley has shown vicious knockout power in his UFC bouts. If he lands power punches on the Pay-Per-View boxing star, he believes he can hurt him and even put his lights out.
“If I land he is going down. Lets not even play. It don’t matter how many boxing or MMA fights you got. If I hit Canelo with everything, throw some ass on the punch, it’s a wrap!”
Woodley hasn’t fought since losing his welterweight title to Kamaru Usman on March 2, 2019 at UFC 235 and is currently recovering from a hand injury that forced him out of a rematch with Robbie Lawler.
