Tyron Woodley: ‘I Am the Greatest Welterweight Champion of All Time ‘

Now that GOAT — greatest of all time — is a recognized word in the dictionary, UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley plans on using it.

On Saturday night at UFC 228, Woodley dispatched highly touted British fighter Darren Till inside two rounds as he earned a submission victory by D’arce choke to hand him the first loss of his professional career.

Ever since winning the title, Woodley has said often that he wants to be remembered as he best welterweight fighter of all time but reaching that goal might force him to go through Georges St-Pierre, who was the longest reigning champion in the history of the division.

Woodley downplayed the possibility of ever fighting St-Pierre after the former champion has stated that he’s only interested in legacy fights that will add even more accolades to his resume and that probably wouldn’t include a return to welterweight.

While he may never get the chance to face St-Pierre inside the Octagon, Woodley believes he’s already done enough to surpass the former champion on that mythical list as the best welterweight in the history of the sport.

“I am the greatest welterweight champion of all time,” Woodley told TMZ following his win on Saturday night. “No disrespect to Georges St-Pierre but I don’t have to fight him to prove that. I’m fighting right now when the sport is at its peak, when the sport is at its hottest. When the athletes are the most supreme, whether it’s genetically using PED’s [performance enhancing drugs] or it’s just because they’ve watched it for the last 25 years and they started wrestling and grappling and striking at the same time. In that era it was the striker, the grappler, and [Georges St-Pierre] made it to the era where wrestlers like Johny Hendricks and Josh Koscheck started to be able to throw punches.

“Now you’ve got a guy like me, who just got his black belt in jiu-jitsu, All-American wrestler and I’ve out struck all the best strikers in the entire UFC and I train with one of the best boxing coaches in the game, Eric Brown from Wild Card. You would almost say I’m a black belt in three different arts. I’m that type of fighter and then I’m like a Mack truck, then I’m very cerebral and I have a good fight IQ.”

Woodley still has a few more title defenses to go before he would match St-Pierre’s record with nine in a row but he feels like the resume he’s already put together is more than enough to stake claim as the greatest of all time.

St-Pierre has said that he’s still interested in fighting and perhaps Woodley knocking on the door of his all time record would be enough to draw him back to welterweight.

Obviously, Woodley isn’t losing any sleep over St-Pierre’s future because he’s just focused on adding more wins to his record following this latest title defense against Till.