Tyron Woodley: I'll slide into Georges St-Pierre's DMs for an RAF showdown

GSP in RAF? Let's get one off. I was thinking about Jordan Burroughs and all these other guys, but yeah, GSP would be nice. He told me he wouldn't want to fight MMA, but maybe wrestling. I may slide into his DMs and say, "I know you don't want to fight MMA. That chapter of your life is closed. But man, I think the fans would go crazy if me and you wrestle. You can't get punched, can't get cut, can't get elbowed. I mean, you can get slammed, but you can get slammed right now." That's how I would maybe joke it, because I know him well enough to f*** around with him, but not at a best-friend level. If I text him or call him, he'll answer the phone.

I don't want to say the word favour but I'm giving Buckley a chance to compete against me. He'll never fight me in MMA, but I know he has been curious, so I'm giving him an opportunity to compete against me and satisfy that curiosity, at least in some form of combat. And I would like for Georges St-Pierre to give me that same thing.

You always get the young kid where you feel like he wants a piece of you. He wanted to see if he could keep up with you. He wanted to measure himself versus you. I've always kind of felt that energy with him. I've tried to help him a couple of times with branding and becoming a little bit more marketable in different spaces. He didn't really listen all that much. He has a reputation of not listening as much. Buckley, I'm going to crossface that dirty uncle moustache off your face in this wrestling match. I'm going to tap you, or pin you. And I'm going to embarrass you out there.

I would go against Colby. I would want to get a couple more matches in first. Colby is a guy that is very lazy, but he has naturally got cardio. He has always had that. That was his scouting report when he was at ATT. He was always lazy, always complained, always acted like nobody wanted to train with him. I'm not taking away from his hard work, but he always had really good cardio and didn't do anything. For me to go against him, somebody who is actually an All-American Division I wrestler, somebody who actually had some success, even s*** over me,

I let him f***ing get one off on me. But I feel like after a wrestling match or two, yeah. I think they're kind of building that up. We've been talking about it already, so I think that would be a good look.

They have to have a successful event launch. They've got a launch coming up in October. I've been talking to the guys the entire time through, and I feel pretty confident they're going to get it done.

People got a little fearful [last time]. That is just the honest truth. They know that, and they're trying to answer those questions people are going to have. People are going to have those questions. There's going to be some doubt. I told them, "These are the questions they're going to ask you. Everybody should know the answer to this." If anybody gets approached about GFL, every GFL employee should know these answers.

Adin Ross has hit me up a couple of times to fight. They wanted me to fight Blueface. They also wanted me to come and just spectate and watch the event, and I was open to both things. But the thing about Adin Ross and the way he is running his promotion is it is purely streamed. I'm used to fighting in Madison Square Garden. Big events. Those types of events are huge marketing events, huge endorsement-opportunity events, and it gets me excited and makes me want to fight. Some of these streamer things are funny, but from the level of competition and the level of promotion, it's not a step backwards, but the money would have to be so much more than I made with MVP, UFC or anything else to get me to do it. If I did it, and somebody said, "How are you going to fight in Madison Square Garden, then fight with Adin Ross?" I would say, "Well, they paid me $2 million or $3 million. So what are you going to do? Are you going to say, keep the $3 million because I fought in Madison Square Garden?" And why are you so worried about what I'm doing? That's my answer. I'm not worried about what people will have to say. People always have something to say, and they always will. But that is the way that situation would make sense for me. If they come up with a situation that looks something like that, we'll sit down and talk.

Jon Jones said he doesn't know if he wants to fight, so it's not about whether he can do it [get out of his contract]. He can do it. It would be a war. It ain't no easy battle by any means, but it is very possible legally, and it would cost them some legal fees to do it. But the last time I spoke to him at that event, he just made mention that he doesn't know if he wants to come back. You're not going to force him. You have to let a man who has done what he has done just make his choice.

I think Islam is just going to take him down a lot. It is two different levels of pressure. Dagestani pressure is one that, if you have never experienced competing against that, training with that, or fighting against that, you are going to be in a world of trouble. You can have people come in and keep going for shots over and over again, but it's not the same thing. They are not coming towards you in the manner an actual opponent is going to do. Training partners usually, most times, are trying to keep you healthy. That is the difference. They are not trying to hurt you, they are not trying to push you, and they may not even be able to maintain that type of intensity and pressure.

I'm assuming Makhachev is a favourite, but I don't think it's by a landslide. If you go out there and just go buck wild, get crazy and push yourself, sometimes you can exceed what the on-paper critics say you should be able to do. Everybody can get clipped with a punch, hit, knocked down and finished off. There are a lot of opportunities for somebody that believes in themselves to go and be victorious against somebody others may think is a shoo-in win.

I think Islam is going to win. I think he is going to take him down. I think he is going to ground and pound him. I think Ian Garry is going to push, push, push, but he is going to find out it is too much pressure and not enough answers for the pressure. That is what I would say if I had to bet on it.

I feel like when the UFC announced the Conor McGregor versus Max Holloway fight during the week of the fight, it kind of made me feel like, y'all are showing you're a little pressed. Y'all are a little threatened. Y'all are the top dog. I wouldn't have done that. That is kind of a silly-looking move. It is Jake Paul's place to say, "first this, first that, record-breaking this." Netflix made this kind of money, these kind of numbers. That is what they do. That is that streaming world. All these views, people coming in, watching for this many hours, this many people tuned in. The analytics and stuff like that is a streamer space. So by the UFC coming out and dropping their stats, you are basically going into their space and competing with them. You are basically screaming and letting everybody know that you are intimidated. Otherwise, I would not do it. You would just relax and laugh it off.

He needed to get his a** slapped in the mouth. All this goofy s***, trying to be a character, be un-cancellable and say whatever you want to say, that s*** ain't funny, man. Protect our Black women. Protect women anyway. You are talking about somebody that caught a stray. She has nothing to do with the White House card. She ain't saying no negative things about the UFC. They opened up the Presidential Obama Center recently, the focus has been on that, and then you come out of the gate with this blasphemous saying. It's disrespectful. It's not funny. It's just bad taste and bad humour. I hope she sues his a**.

Whether I agree with what he said or not, I can't take away from the fact that that motherf***er is an athlete, and he is in the hunt. Derrick Lewis is a big old dude. There are other guys where I feel like, if Hokit uses his agility and makes being undersized work for him, he could win differently. You can see how he used to be in another position, because he was a running back or something like that. He probably still has that burst and explosiveness in the system.

I just think that is corny. When you are watching and spectating somebody's fight, and then you get on the internet talking about somebody losing, you didn't do it. You didn't beat him. You didn't hurt him. You didn't finish him. So you are kind of overly gassing another guy up because you are mad at somebody else, or you want to continue a feud with somebody else. Now you are overly pumping somebody else up. It's kind of goofy.

I feel like sometimes guys get so caught up in going to the body for strikes because it looks like a boxing technique. MMA fighters since the beginning of time want to prove we have hands like boxers. Then Gaethje told him to come after him and wrestle him. Then he did, and he ended up getting taken down. I heard a little yell happen during the wrestling part, so I don't know if it was an injury, but at the end of the day, that is just the nature of the game. He got hit with a hard shot. I feel like he invested so much time and energy in punching the body. Justin Gaethje is a tough dude. I said the whole time, the only way this fight card is so interesting to me is if Gaethje finds a way to pull it off.

Pereira and Ilia Topuria are the only two stars in my mind in the UFC, those are the only two stars I see. Those two guys lost. Yes, they had crazy numbers, but when the two guys I think are still the only two real legitimate stars in the UFC both lost, I would be giving them rematches ASAP from the same card.

I don't know. Arman has a lot of pressure. The thing about Gaethje, when everybody asks you about predictions for Gaethje, Gaethje can be unpredictable. He can be winning, he can be losing, it can be a different weight, it can be a different style, but he is always in the hunt to win, knock you out, press forward and be tough. He doesn't have to knock you out to win, and we forget he is a Division I wrestler. The pedigree and the mindset of a wrestler, compared to other martial arts, you have to add that as an attribute as well. I can never count him out of a fight.

I think Max is going to win. I'm not going for Conor. But if I was somebody involved in his process to get ready for this fight, I would have him train with young, hungry, spunky fighters. Conor said something about Ilia. He said, you train with these people that can't even beat you, and you are not getting better. He said you need to put $1,000 down and say, whoever can knock me out gets $1,000. Basically, what he said is that you have to be in a room where somebody is pushing you. I agree with that.

Max is a big guy, he trains a lot, he stays pretty in shape. Conor is giving us a lot of videos, but I can do five or six videos in different T-shirts and shorts right now of me training, looking like I am going apeshit and crazy and right back in it. It could all be cap. It could all be just to get you guys geared in.

To be honest, when I heard him speak on Ariel's show, he was making a lot of sense. I've got to admit he was making a lot of sense about some of these matchups, and some of these guys like Ilia that they are comparing to him.

He was saying he kind of liked Ilia. He didn't really hate on him. He was just saying that Ilia is not a complete fighter yet. He didn't trash him. He just said he wasn't a complete fighter yet. He said, "You guys are comparing him to me." He said he was a complete fighter, and a complete businessman, and that is what separated him from Ilia. That is where I feel like it actually makes sense.

If Conor comes forward, gets into Max's head and lands some shots, then frustrates him, he has a good chance. But Max has always had a good chance. He is tough, he loves fighting those fights, his cardio is great, his skill set is great, and he just looks like he belongs out there.