Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight No. 1 contender, Stephen Thompson, will fight reigning 170-pound kingpin, Tyron Woodley, in the UFC 205 pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event, locked and loaded for Nov. 12, 2016 inside Madison Square Garden in New York City.
While most opponents these days get into some sort of verbal altercation leading up to fight night, "Wonderboy" and "The Chosen One" got their war of words started fairly quickly. In fact, Woodley was barely removed from last July's knockout win over Robbie Lawler before Thompson started his championship campaign.
Which continued on a recent edition of Submission Radio:
"If you look back at his fights, he doesn't throw a double or go for the takedown very often. Tyron wants to put those hands on you and wants to try and knock you out. I think once he gets a little frustrated, obviously he's gonna try and do that, just like everybody else that I've faced. I think pretty much the hardest opponent in the division is Rory MacDonald. I mean, Rory pretty much schooled Tyron Woodley. But I can't take this guy lightly and that's how I go in looking at this fight. A lot of people are like, ‘oh man, you're gonna crush this dude and Tyron Woodley, he smoked him' and you know what, I don't think like that. I'm not the type of guy to do that. Because I want to prepare for the best guy, and that's Tyron Woodley. That's the guy standing in front of me. I'm preparing myself as if this is going to be the hardest fight that I have ever faced - and it possibly could be. I want to be ready for five, five-minute rounds."
MacDonald has since set sail for Bellator MMA.
But during his run with UFC, "Red King" was able to capture a fairly easy unanimous decision win over Woodley at UFC 174 back in 2014 (more on that here). To his credit, "The Chosen One" went on to secure back-to-back wins before turning out the "Ruthless" lights at UFC 201.
Thompson, meanwhile, was the last fighter to beat MacDonald and is currently riding a seven-fight win streak, one that includes four knockout finishes. That's probably why he's ranked No. 1 at 170 pounds the odds-on favorite to win the title in "The Big Apple."
To see who else is fighting at UFC 205 click here.
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