American MMA fighter Tyrone Woodley collaborated with the Strikeforce promotion until 2012, and since 2013 he began to act under the auspices of the UFC. In 2016, Woodley became the UFC Welterweight Champion. However, at the moment he has already lost this title - the reason for this was the defeat from Kamaru Usman in March 2019.
Childhood and adolescence
The birthday of the famous fighter Tyrone Woodley is April 7, 1982. He spent all his childhood in the American town of Ferguson. Tyrone grew up in a large family (in addition to him, she had twelve more children). His father's name was Sylvester, and his mother was Deborah. When Tyrone was ten years old, his father left the family, and since then, only his mother has been involved in raising Tyrone.
While still at school, Tyrone was heavily involved in sports - American football and wrestling. In 2000, he won gold at the Missouri wrestling championship in his age category.
In the same 2000, the young man graduated from high school and became a student at the University of Missouri. During his studies at the university, Tyrone continued to practice wrestling, for some time he even was the captain of the student team in this sport.
Woodley graduated in 2005 with a degree in Agricultural Economics.
First steps in MMA
Once the sports club, where Tyrone trained, arranged an amateur MMA tournament for its members. Tyrone decided to participate in it. His first fight lasted only twenty seconds - that is how long it took Woodley to knock out his opponent. Then he played six more amateur fights and was able to achieve early victory in all of them.
There is also information that at this time Tyrone tried to get into the TV show "The Ultimate Fighter", but was dropped at the last stage of the selection.
Tyrone's first professional MMA fight took place on February 7, 2009, against Steve Schneider. This fight lasted less than a minute - Woodley won by TKO. The next fight - against Jeff Carstens - took place at the end of April of the same 2009. Here Tyrone too quickly won a victory with a spectacular choke hold.
Performances under the auspices of Strikeforce
Then the organization Strikeforce drew attention to the talented fighter. On June 6, 2009, he took part in the show for the first time and entered the ring against Salvador Woods. The fight lasted one round, Woodley defeated Woods by knockout.
In September 2009, at the next Strikeforce Challengers show, Tyrone's fight with Zach Light was organized. And here Tyrone was stronger again.
In total, from the summer of 2009 to the summer of 2012, Tyrone fought eight fights under the auspices of Strikeforce, without suffering a single defeat. Moreover, four of these eight fights ended ahead of schedule.
With his brilliant performances, Tyrone earned the right to compete for the title of Strikeforce's strongest welterweight fighter. Woodley's opponent in this fight, which took place on July 14, 2012, was Nate Marquardt. And it was here that Tyrone suffered his first defeat. In the fourth five-minute Nate had a series of crushing blows, after which Woodley could no longer recover.
UFC career
After Strikeforce ceased to exist, many of the athletes under its auspices received contracts with the UFC. Tyrone Woodley was among them. Of the first seven bouts in the UFC, Tyrone won five (we are talking about fights with Jay Chiron, Josh Koschek, Carlos Condit, Kim Dong Hyun and Calvin Gastelum) and only lost two.
Ultimately, this allowed him to enter the championship duel with American Robert Lawler. This fight was fought on July 30, 2016. It lasted only 2 minutes and 12 seconds, and then was stopped, as Lawler was knocked out. So Woodley became the UFC welterweight champion (that is, from 70 to 77 kilograms) in the weight category.
In the fall of 2016, he had to defend this title for the first time. At UFC 205, he was fielded as a challenger by Stephen Randall Thompson. The fight was very interesting and lasted all five rounds. And when they came to an end, the three judges made their (rather rare for this sport) decision: no one won, a draw.
On March 4, 2017, at UFC 209, Thompson and Woodley met again in the Octagon. Woodley was stronger this time. He won by split decision and remained with the title.
Then Woodley was able to successfully defend his title of champion twice more - in fights against the Brazilian Demian Maya (the fight took place on July 29, 2017) and the Englishman Darren Till (the fight took place on September 8, 2018).
The next contender for the title, which belonged to Woodley, was the Nigerian-born fighter Kamaru Usman. The fight between him and Tyrone, which took place on March 2, 2019, turned out to be very entertaining. At the same time, it must be admitted that Kamaru had an advantage in almost all five rounds. Several times he pressed Woodley to the cage and transferred him to the ground. At the end of five rounds, Kamaru was declared the winner, he became the new champion.
Subsequently, in an interview, Woodley said that he would like to go out again to fight Usman in the octagon. But it is still not clear whether this rematch will take place or not.
Woodley family
Tyrone has a wife, beautiful Avery. Avery has two higher educations, for some time she worked as a teacher at school, and now she is in business. It is also known that she shares her husband's passion for martial arts and attends all his fights.
Tyrone and Avery have four children - three boys (Darron, Dillon, Tyrone Jr.) and one girl (her name is Gaby).
