Tyron Woodley is over the money fights. More specifically, he is over asking for them for the time being. After all, he has come up empty in each of his money-fight attempts: from Georges St-Pierre and Conor McGregor to the Diaz Brothers and Michael Bisping, Woodley has never been able to get the big money fight. But why is that? The reigning welterweight champion believes we already know the answer, but he is willing to articulate it for us anyway:

“We all know why,” Woodley began. “People can always act like they’ll fight anybody, any time until it’s time to fight me,” Woodley told ‘Sway’s Universe’ after his latest title defense. “I can name five or six people ‘I’ll fight anybody, any time’. Nate Diaz, Nick Diaz, Michael Bisping, Georges St-Pierre, Conor McGregor. All had the opportunity, all was given the chance to fight me, none of them accepted.

“They’re scared to lose to somebody that name recognition is going grow after I whoop their ass. If Georges St-Pierre is going to lose, he wants to lose to somebody basically ‘oh I fought in a different weight class, I’ve been out for X amount of years, I lost to Bisping, it’s not that [big a deal]’. He comes back to his old weight class and gets worked over by the new school, that’s going to be a problem.”

The reigning welterweight king would then turn his attention to the UFC’s brothers of the 219:

“I like the Diaz brothers,” Woodley said. “I like Nate and Nick. I like how they fight and how real they are. They aren’t paying these guys. Nate accepted the fight against me. He accepted the fight, but he wants to get paid and he should get paid. They didn’t pay him.”

Tyron Woodley has maintained that now, he is only focused on fighting whomever the UFC puts in front of him, and Dana White has made no bones about it: that next man is Colby “Chaos” Covington.