Things didn’t go Tyron Woodley’s way at UFC 235, and his coach, Duke Roufus, is fully prepared to embrace going back to the drawing board.

Kamaru Usman put on a splendid performance in the UFC 235 co-headliner last weekend, defeating Woodley by unanimous decision to claim the welterweight title. It wasn’t Usman winning that surprised so many fans and observers; it was the way Usman won, dominating with his takedowns and grappling to impose his will for 25 minutes on the now-former champion.

For his part, Roufus told MMAjunkie Radio that nothing about Usman’s performance caught him by surprise. He simply gave credit where credit is due.

“The kid worked his ass off to win that fight,” Roufus said.

So where does this leave Woodley, who held the title since July 2016 and defended it four times? Roufus is right there with him.

“Just licking some wounds and picking up the pieces from Mr. Woodley’s loss. But that’s what this thing is all about. You’ve got to be a great loser as a great winner, as well,” Roufus said. “Tough night for Tyron, but here’s the thing: What I got going for me, I was a world champion that’s been defeated and had bad nights. My older brother was a 10-time world champion, been defeated, had bad nights. And I’ve done it with other fighters. I think I have a lot of experience bouncing back from these things, and that’s just what I’m optimistic about.”

One of the things that consistently came up in the build-up to UFC 235 was whether or not Woodley was focused enough on Usman. In recent months, Woodley’s outside-the-octagon endeavors have increased, with regular appearances on TMZ and a burgeoning rap career.

Woodley maintained all along that none of it distracted him from training, and Roufus wasn’t about to make any excuses, either.

“I talked to Din (Thomas), and we’re going to come up with our assessment. I like to be ‘PCP,’ and I’ll explain: I want to praise what we did, correct what we didn’t do right and then positively,” Roufus said. “(Tyron is) hurting. He’s got to feel lower than a curb right now, like he’s playing handball with a curb because he lost the most coveted title in all of fighting. But, you know, we’re just going to assess it and figure out the little things.

“There’s a lot of things that come into play. I was really sick coming into this. We had a tougher weight cut. But those aren’t excuses. If you fight, you have no excuses. You have excuses not to fight, and that’s my belief system. You can cancel the fight, because you have excuses. But if you choose to fight – whether you have injury, you have this, you have that – you have no excuses. I try not to make excuses for myself and/or my people. Respect to Team Usman. They won, we lost, and we got to get better.”

Woodley no doubt would like an immediate rematch and believes his resume speaks for itself. Roufus, though, is realistic about what it’ll take to get his fighter back on top.

“We all know how the UFC feels about Tyron, and here’s the thing: I’m friends with everybody. I love Tyron, I love them, I get a long with everyone. That’s between them. I’m always going to stand with my fighter, but I understand what they want him to do,” Roufus said. “We have to go stretch and choke out two or three people, and get a title shot. That’s it. That’s just the formula he’s going to have to do – come in, take out someone and get some big performances. That’s just part of it sometimes. … I understand you don’t get an automatic rematch all the time.”

To hear more from Roufus, watch his full MMA Junkie Radio interview in the video above.

For complete coverage of UFC 235, check out the UFC Eventssection of the site.

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