LOS ANGELES -- As far as UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley is concerned, Kamaru Usman’s projection of confidence heading into their UFC 235 co-feature bout is actually an attempt at convincing himself he can win, when he doesn’t really believe it himself.
“He says a lot of stuff and sometimes when people talk too much, they’re trying to reassure themselves,” Woodley said Monday at a media event promoting Saturday night’s card in Las Vegas. “You haven’t heard me talk about Usman.”
The way Woodley sees it, other opponents he’s faced over the years had, on paper, a clear potential path to victory, a riddle for Woodley to solve, from Dong Hyun Kim’s judo to Stephen Thompson’s kickboxing to Demian Maia’s jiu-jitsu and so on.