LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 31: (R-L) Tyron Woodley punches Kelvin Gastelum in their welterweight bout during the UFC 183 event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on January 31, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
UFC 201 will be headlined by American Top Team teammates Robbie Lawler and Tyron Woodley fighting one another. Lawler is the welterweight champ and Woodley the No. 1 contender.
In recent years, Lawler joined the South Florida mega-team and saw his star rise, culminating in his winning and defending the world title at 170 pounds. At the same time, Woodley has continued to claim ATT and fly their flag, but has also removed himself a bit during training camps, training at places like Roufusport and others for bouts.
Now that the two are set to fight, Woodley sounds happy with the training he's getting outside of Florida, but bristles a bit at the fact that Lawler seems to be the face of ATT. "How long has Robbie been with ATT? A couple years?" he recently asked, rhetorically, while speaking with Duane Finley for FloCombat.
"Let's try 10 years. That's how long I've been with them. So, I feel like I deserve to wear that banner more than anybody. He is the champion, currently, so he will be doing his training camp there."
At first, Woodley couldn't quite believe that he was finally getting his long-awaited title shot. Once it all became a reality to him, however, he began to see many advantages in his favor.
"Even after I signed the bout agreement, it just didn't seem real because you know how our sport is -- crazy things happen," he continued.
"But then when I got to training camp and I started watching film, I started breaking him down, it just got real, man."
As great as Lawler has been for the past few years, Woodley thinks he's got what it takes to dethrone the champ. "Man, I'm just too fast. I'm just too well-rounded to be denied in this fight ... It's my season, it's my time," he asssured.
"I can take it to the ground and grapple, I can wrestle, I can obviously strike with creative strikes and get there really quickly, but in addition to that, I just feel I can brawl and bang as well so there's multiple different ways I feel comfortable winning the fight."
Woodley just doesn't envision "Ruthless" having as many ways to win as he does. "I feel that Robbie has one way to be successful -- get me to stand in front of him and go with a 'who got the bigger balls contest?,' " he said.
"And even in that situation, I've got a pretty good chance of knocking him out."
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