UFC president Dana White is known for openly sharing his opinions about fighters, and has often been critical of certain athletes.
Even legendary fighters like Anderson Silva have faced criticism from White for performances he deemed underwhelming in important fights.
Tyron Woodley, during his reign as welterweight champion, had a strained relationship with the UFC and its president. White publicly questioned Woodley`s performances on several occasions.
Despite achieving three title defenses and one draw at the top of the welterweight division, Woodley`s fights were sometimes criticized for being uneventful.
Woodley has not competed in MMA since 2021, and his plans for a return to the sport are uncertain after the GFL promotion cancelled its debut events.
Tyron Woodley Admits 2018 Rap Song Targeted Dana White
In 2018, following his last successful title defense against Darren Till, Tyron Woodley ventured into music, releasing his first rap single.
The song, titled ‘I’ll Beat Yo A–‘ and featuring TWOOODLEY, Wiz Khalifa, Dj Waffles, T-Dubb-O, and Talkofchicao, has accumulated over 12,000 plays on Spotify.
With aggressive lyrics, the song`s message was quite direct.
Recently, on Eric Nicksick’s Verse Us podcast, Woodley disclosed that the track was actually directed at Dana White. He explained that he felt unable to publicly respond to the criticism he was receiving from White at the time and used the song as an outlet for his frustration.
According to Woodley, the UFC president was unaware of the song`s true target. It was the champion`s way to express his annoyance while feeling he was the best in the world in his weight class.
After releasing the song, Woodley experienced a four-fight losing streak before leaving the UFC in 2021 and transitioning to boxing.
“That’s why I made that song ‘I’ll Beat Yo A–‘. If you listen to the lyrics it was for Dana White. I couldn’t say I wanted to beat Dana White’s a–, but I wanted to badly because he made me look stupid. Why are you going to sit here and act like, everybody, [Michael] Bisping and [Kenny] Florian were laughing, I’m like, ‘Ha ha ha, I’ll beat both your a—-.’—not Florian, that’s my dog—but yeah, you made me look stupid and then when I went on air, I couldn’t defend myself. So somebody said, they shut my mic off. In my ear, ‘You can’t reply. You can’t say nothing. You can’t speak on this.’” Woodley explained.
Tyron Woodley Traces UFC Rift Back to 2016 Title Win
In the same interview, Tyron Woodley discussed the origins of his strained relationship with the UFC.
Woodley captured the welterweight title in 2016 by knocking out Robbie Lawler at UFC 201 in the first round. Both fighters were teammates at American Top Team.
Woodley believes that the UFC intended to set up Lawler for high-profile fights against stars like Conor McGregor or Georges St-Pierre had he won.
When Woodley didn`t receive the same level of opportunities and promotion after winning the title, he started to feel resentment towards UFC management.
“The rift started before then, but the big rift of the power dispute is I know what he was offered. If this is the NCAA tournament, and he’s the first seed and I beat the first seed, m———– I’m the first seed. So I want everything that he was about to get. I want everything that you talked about. I want every little perk. I want every little extra under the table, and I was relentless on it,” Woodley stated.
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