During an open media workout ahead of Tyron Woodley’s scheduled fight against Jake Paul, Woodley spoke to reporters about making the transition from MMA to boxing and getting pointers from one of the best to ever do it.
“All camps have highs and lows. You have to fight through adversity. With me mentally it was a lot easier when we were having fun. It was passionate and you had people watching your every move and monitoring your every step. I’m just very grateful to all my coaches. To me, this is just a lot of fun. I haven’t had fun in a long time, to be real. I loved this training camp. It was one of my most fun ever.
“I don’t have any issue with Jake Paul. Only issue is he signed the contract. He’s trying his very best to play the mind games. But I’m a man. I don’t play kids’ games.
“There’s a lot of things in MMA you can get away with. In MMA you can make excuses like, ‘Coach, I’ve got to watch out for a kick or get ready for the take takedown.’ So we make all these excuses. None of those excuses are allowed.
“The times I worked with Floyd [Mayweather], he was very vocal. You couldn’t do nothing wrong. And that’s what makes him so great. In MMA we over-do it a lot, but it doesn’t always transition into power. It doesn’t always transition into accuracy. He gave me the foundation of how he beat everyone he did.”
