MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Tyron Woodley Talks Starring in ‘Cobra Kai’ Season 5, Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva and More

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

On the latest edition of The Fighter vs. The Writer, former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley joins the show to catch up with everything he’s been doing lately including a starring role in Cobra Kai season 5. Woodley will reveal how he landed his role in the hit Netflix series and what it was like filming opposite stars like Ralph Macchio and William Zabka after he grew up watching them in films like The Karate Kid. Woodley also details how he was actually in the middle of filming Cobra Kai when he got the call to step into a short notice rematch against Jake Paul. With Paul now scheduled to face Anderson Silva in October, Woodley gives his thoughts on that matchup and why people shouldn’t count out the 25-year-old social influencer from pulling off the upset against the UFC legend. All this and more on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Subscribe: Spotify Read More: MMA Fighting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome back to the Fighter versus the Writer. I'm your host, as always, Damon Martin, and we are back for another. week after a crazy, crazy weekend at UFC 279. Probably one of the wildest weekends in terms of changes to a card, how it all unfolded, just an insane, insane turn of events. Unfortunately, I had planned on actually breaking everything down with the special guest today, but unfortunately, Stephen Wonderboy Thompson was going to jump on with me, break down all the happenings from UFC 279, but he had to cancel at the last minute.

Now, that being said, we will have a great interview today with former UFC welterweight champion and now star of Cobra Kai season five. Tyron Woodley is going to join me here in just a few minutes to talk about his joining the show, you know, how that whole thing came about starring in Cobur Kai, which I finished the season over the weekend. I loved that show. Grew up a huge karate kid fan. You will not find a bigger Cobra Kai fan on the planet. I have my Eagle Fang and Cobur Kai T-shirts in the closet. So I'm a big, big fan of that show and the entire Karate Kid series. So talking to Tyrant about all that and his fight career as well.

It was a lot of fun. We talked about Jake Shields, Anderson Silva. So that's coming up at just a few minutes. So unfortunately, I won't have as in-depth of a breakdown as I wanted with Wonderboy, but I will still talk a little bit about UFC 279 real quick because it was, boy, to quote Dana White, and not to get crude or anything here, but it was a bit of a shit show. You know, we go from the press conference getting canceled on Thursday because of the backstage altercations with Hamzot Chimayev. And not to throw the guy under the bus or anything, but it sure seems like Hamzot was kind of in the middle of everything.

You know, he had a fracas with Kevin Holland. Then he had a thing with Nate Diaz and his team. And not to say anyone's absolved from it, but it definitely seemed like Hamzot was in the middle of everything. So, yeah, that was that. So we start there on Thursday. The whole press coverage gets canceled. That was a weird one. You know, we've never really seen something like that happen where the backstage altercations actually calls the entire press conference to get canceled.

And then roll right into Friday morning. It seemed like Thursday seemed like a distant memory by Friday morning because I started getting reports that Hamzot may miss weight. I got a report about that early on Friday morning that he was not going to make weight and it was an issue. Then I heard he was going to weigh at least 178 pounds. He ended up being 178.5. the fight with Nate Diaz got scrapped. We ended up switching the entire card around. Every fight of the three main fights on the main card got switched around.

So we had Lee Jingleang, Daniel Rodriguez, we had Kevin Holland against Hamzaa Chamae and Nate Diaz against Tony Ferguson. Just a, I mean, you could not have written this. If you were trying to figure out the most wild, insane things to happen at UFC 279, no one would have predicted that particular thing happening. So yeah, it's pretty crazy. So they're moving on to Saturday to the fights themselves. Of course, you know, Li Jing Liang loses a close, you know, close decision to Daniel Rodriguez.

I know a lot of people are calling it a robbery. I scored Lee Jing Liang winning, but I don't think it was such a blowout that I thought it was a robbery. Close fight, yes. Did Lee Jing Liang probably deserve the victory? I would say yes, but I'm not like, I'm not totally sure. shocked at the decision. It wasn't the most impactful fight. And I think when you have those kind of fights where there were no definitive moments, it does make it a little harder to score because there were some pretty even exchanges. It seemed like both guys were kind of tentative

to engage at points. It did feel like, you know, Lee landed the bigger strikes and he did more impact. So by that regard, he should have won. But I don't know. I tend to, I tend not to call robbery unless it's really egregious, where it's just like so clear-cut that it's a real big problem. And I just didn't quite see it in that fight. But that being said, you know, I still thought Lee Jingling deserved to win. Co-main event, you know, Hamza Chamev comes out there and kind of lays ways to Kevin Holland in two minutes, you know, basically runs out, takes him down, and eventually snaps on the dars choke to get the submission. Got a lot of thoughts on Hamzachimyev.

Listen, the guy missed weight by seven and a half pounds. for a welterweight fight. Now, first off, that's, I mean, that should ruin his prospects of getting a title shot anytime soon. One fight, two fight. I just don't think you can, you can't, I mean, it's not like he missed it by a pound. It's not like he missed it by half a pound. It's not like he didn't shave his beard and he didn't get on the scale and he missed weight.

He missed it by seven and a half pounds. That's a problem. That's a big problem. And you can't, and one thing, you know, Connor McGregor put the tweet out on Friday, I believe, or Saturday saying, you know, you reward the guy by basically changing the entire card around and he doesn't get penalized. He doesn't. And in a way, you know, in that way, I totally agree with Connor.

I mean, what does it say to the next guy or girl who just doesn't want to cut weight? And, you know, they have, I mean, again, this is all going around star power. Hamzot is a star. Hamzot was part of the big selling point of this card. So rather than penalize him for completely botching the main event, and completely botching his weight cut, they switched the entire card run. The crazy part is because he came in at 178.5

and they ended up moving him into the catchweight fight with Kevin Holland, he didn't have to pay a fine. Think about that. The guy ruins the main event and doesn't, and then basically has to switch the entire card around, and he doesn't even get penalized for it. How wild is that? And I'm not, you know,

I'm not opposed to them changing things around, but it just seemed like such a bad move because this is going to happen again. I mean, it's going to happen again. And is it going to come down every single time to Star Power? Is it really just going to come down to, well, you sell pay-per-views or you bring ratings? So we're going to change an entire card around for you. And in a way, I felt bad for Kevin Holland as well because, you know, yes, he accepted to fight. Yes, from what I heard, he got paid really well for it.

Good for him. All those things are great. And he should have. He should have gotten paid just a bag of cash. They should have shown up, you know, just, they should have shown up like it was the town, and they're just hauling out bags of cash to Kevin Holland's house for doing what he did to take that fight. I mean, he was facing a boxer in Daniel Rodriguez already on short notice. Let's not forget.

That fight got made like three weeks ago. And he goes from that, a boxer in Daniel Rodriguez, to a wrestler, a dominant wrestler that in Hamzachamaya. I mean, I'm not, again, you're a mixed martial artist. You should know wrestling. Yes, we all know that. We all like to say that. but you still drill for a specific opponent. Look at Nate Diaz.

He talked about that in his fight with Tony Ferguson. He had been drilling grappling and wrestling nonstop to get ready for Homzot. Then he goes from that to Tony Ferguson, which is a complete different stylistic matchup. Again, it was quick. It was over. He got out grappled. He got out grappled and he got submitted. And credits the Hamzot for not screwing around.

He probably knew, you know, Kevin Holland, you know, potentially was a more dangerous opponent than Nate Diaz. because, you know, I still maintain Nate Diaz isn't a welterweight. He really isn't. I mean, he didn't look tiny in there against Tony Ferguson, but let's not forget Tony Ferguson didn't a welterweight either. Throughout his career, Tony Ferguson has not been a welterweight. So, you know, for them to go in there and do that. And so, you know, I feel bad for Kevin, you know.

But again, credit. Kevin stepped up. He took the fight. He got paid, you know, a big bag of little of money. Good for him. But, yeah, he went out there and not grappled him and submitted him. And that's part of the sport. And the downside of this is that, you know, Hamza, you know, Dana calls him an effing freak in nature and, you know, praises him left, right and center.

You know, Kevin Holland's going to go home with a loss on his record. I mean, I put out when Kevin Holland released his post-fight statement saying, I want a striker next time. I want Wonderboy or I want D-Rod, Daniel Rodriguez, after losing a quote-unquote grappling match to Hamzot. And I already have people on Twitter saying, well, it's MMA. You have to know everything. That's my point about these short-noticed fights Why I always say, if you accept a short-notice fight, we should praise you, but if you don't,

we should never condemn you. Because people have already forgotten. People have forgotten that Kevin Holland already took the Daniel Rodriguez fight on three weeks notice, and then just completely discount the fact that he took the Hamasat-Chimaia fight on 24-hours notice, he lost. It's a loss on his record. And people are going to ask him and talk about that for years

about how he went out there, got taken down, and submitted in two minutes. people will forget the narrative that surrounded how that fight comes together. Those are the factors you have to play in to all these decisions. When fighters say they're going to take a short notice fight or they accept a short notice fight, and then they lose, you know, we all lose perspective. We're all guilty of it. We look at the record.

We look at the resume. It doesn't say Kevin Holland lost to Hamza Chimaev, quote, you know, in parentheses, took the fight on 24 hours notice after fighting a striker. No, it just says loss. That's it. And it has the submission, as the time, 202 or whatever, in the first round. People, six months from now, a year from now, they're barely going to mention that he lost to him on short notice. They're barely going to mention that it came together on 24 hours notice.

They're going to mention that he got taken down and outgrappled and submitted inside about three minutes. That's what they're going to talk about. So that's the problem and the risk you take in these kind of situations. I don't think, you know, me personally, I don't really think Kevin Holland loses a ton of stock. I mean, he lost to legitimately one of the best fighters in the world. and he wasn't prepared for him, but it is a loss. And there's going to be people who are now going to suddenly say they don't want to fight Kevin Holland because he's coming off a loss. He got mauled by Hamzaa Chamaev.

I don't really want to fight that guy. It's a weird way this sport works. Now, Hamzat looked phenomenal. Hamzat went out there and wrecked shop. He looked fantastic. But he did it out of his weight class. He wants to be a welterweight champion. You can't put that guy anywhere near a welterweight title for at least two or three fights.

So you can see and he can prove that he can make that. weight. Me personally, he was already talking about fighting a 185 in the future. Let him go to 185. Let him go to middleweight. You know, there's a lot. I mean, to me, in a weird way, there's a, there's now a faster past, hypothetically, to a title shot at middleweight. Because if Homside goes out there and wins one more fight, and I think it should be the Paulo Costa fight, they had beef, they almost got into it at the UFCPI. We know the story. The video came out. If you put Hamzot in there with one middleweight, put him in there with Paulo Costa, he wins. he gets the winner of Adasanya and Paheya right there. I mean, yeah, you can hypothetically say if Alex Paheyah goes out there and knocks out of Arizona, they do the immediate rematch. But, you know, Hamzot could get a title because there's no one else. I mean, there's literally no one else in middleweight right now.

Unless Alex wins, which he very well may do, there's no one else for Adasanya. Adasanya versus Hamzot is a much bigger fight than anything else they could book a middleweight. Now, you can argue Hamzot could get the winner of Leon Edwards and Kamar Usman 3 when that fight, assuming that fight happens in early 2023. But again, do you really want to risk that? I mean, he's going to have to fight a Colby Covington. He's going to have to fight, you know, somebody else at Walterway to prove he can even make the weight. You know what I mean?

You got to me, it's two or three fights. I mean, there's got to be consistency. I know this is the first time he's not made weight. But let's not kid ourselves. He's had tough weight cuts before. We've seen it. Now, he's gone out there and performed and won, and that's very possible. But when you miss weight by seven and a half pounds, and that's a non-title fight, let's not forget.

178.5. That was a title fight. He's eight and a half pounds over. That's bad. Okay, that's bad. And this fight didn't come together on short notice. It wasn't like he found out about this a month ago. He knew this was coming.

So this was just a completely miscalculated issue with Hamzaa Chamaev, and you can't put him in a title fight for a couple of fights, in my opinion. You got to make, he's got to prove he can consistently make the weight again and do so in a safe manner, which is also, you know, if the doctors are telling him, we're not going to let you cut any more weight, that's a problem. I mean, I had heard that they were talking about taking him to the hospital, which would have pretty much wrecked him from fighting at all. So, credits never getting the win, but you can't put him in a title fight or welterweight. I mean, not anytime soon. He's got to go out there and fight one or maybe even two times, I think. two times would be minimum. Or go to middleweight,

fight Paulo Costa, huge fight. If you win, you get the winner out of Sanya Pahia, and you get your title shot. And then if he can do it, he can do the rare instance instead of going up,

he goes down. Maybe then he tries his hand at Welch away. But yeah, I just, I don't know. Like I said, I agree with Connor. You're rewarding a guy

for missing weight, and ultimately he really didn't get punished. He didn't lose a percentage of his purse. You know, he doesn't really lose. any ground in the division because it's not like he lost it's a problem

the main event of course was Nate Diaz and Tony Ferguson Nate Diaz went out there and did the damn thing on the last fight of his contract looking to get out the UFC goes out there and fights and beats Tony Ferguson was it the greatest fight in history of the sport absolutely not was it still fun to see two legends go out there and battle it

out 100% you know again both guys were expecting much different opponents you know Tony Ferguson take it on a big you know strong Walterweight and Lee Jing Liang. Of course, Nate Diaz was taking on Hamza-Chayev. So they went out there and battled it out, man. And Nate caught him in that guillotine choke in the fourth round.

And you could not have written a better script for Nate Diaz as he looks to leave the UFC and then attests the waters and free agency elsewhere. I know Nate, I was actually shocked because I know from talking to people close to Nate how upsetting and angry he was about this long delay to get him a full. fight. I mean, his last fight was in July of 2021. He wanted to fight much sooner because he wanted to be done with this contract. Delays,

matchups with Dustin Porrier were talked about, never came together. All these things happened, and he ends up in this fight. Doesn't even get to fight Hamas Lachamai, ends up with Tony Ferguson. But afterwards, could not have predicted that he would go out there and say, you know, basically thanks for everything UFC, and I'll be back. Did not see

that coming. Gotta be honest. I don't know if that was a conversation he had with Dana White backstage. or Hunter Campbell or what it was, but it seemed like the, the turn of events for Nate Diaz going from like, you know, I was, I fully expected like a, just a full-throated Nate Diaz, you know, you know, crazy post-fight interview and then storming out of the cage, not showing at the post-fight press conference, and basically walking out with his, with his freedom. That didn't happen. He was basically saying, I'm going to go out, do some other things, you know, try to do what Conner

McGregor didn't do, which, you know, means to go out there and win fights in boxing. And then, and then come back. Now, he's 37. Let's not forget that. Nate Diaz is not a young man anymore. You know, Nate Diaz is an older guy. So it's not like he has a ton of time really ahead of him in terms of the sport. But, uh, yeah, I mean, listen, you know, you booked the Jake Paul fight.

Um, you know, Jake's got the fight coming up with Anderson Silva. That's going to be huge. But, you know, you booked Nate against Jake. Um, you know, that's a big fight. he'll get paid well. There's other opportunities out there for him in other organizations. I'm sure, you know, there was a little bit of beef with A.J. McKee. If Bellator wants to pony up a whole boatload of money to get Nate Diaz over there on a short fight deal, they could do that.

That might entice A.J. McKee to stay with Bellator longer. I don't know. He ain't going to PFL. I highly doubt that, even for the million dollar prize. I mean, that's just not going to get Nadeez up in the morning. But, you know, again, Jake Paul, other influencer fights. I mean, if you saw whether you like it or not, and I said this last week coming off the whole KSI thing, the social gloves card this past weekend with Austin McBroom and Anson Gibb and Nick Young and Levyon Bell and Adrian Peterson,

dude, the interest in that card was insane online. Now, I don't know how the numbers did on pay-per-view. I don't know how much Fight TV sold. I just know that the interest in terms of people clicking on results and clicking on stories was in, freaking sane. People were all over that on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram. People were all over that social gloves card. Like it or not. Again, I'm not telling you you have to like it. I'm just saying it's here to stay. It ain't going anywhere anytime soon. Nate Diaz against any, Nate Diaz against KSI. That would be a big fight. I don't care how legitimate it is.

It would be a big fight. So Nate Diaz has options and I love that. And now he's going to become one of the biggest free agents in the history of the sport. He's going to have to have. people bidding for his services. Nate Diaz is a legitimate star. Was a lot of that built upon his rivalry with Connor McGregor? Sure, but who cares? He's got it now. He's got that, he's got that status and he should absolutely cash in on it, whether it's Jake Paul or KSI or Logan Paul or whatever. Make your money. And I love it. I don't know about him coming back and winning a UFC title. I don't know if that's going to happen. He may go out and see that, you know, the grass is green or elsewhere and just make a boatload of money and be gone.

But I loved it. I love that he has his freedom. I love that he got out of his contract. And I love that he did in a very classy way. He could have gone scorched earth. I fully expected scorched earth Nadeez to show up. And he didn't. I'm fine with that.

But it was just so bizarre. Like he was very gracious and, you know, saying, you know, I'll be back. And, you know, I want to win the UFC title. It's the best title. And I was like, whoa, this is not the Nate Diaz I thought we were going to get. I thought we were going to go, you know, we're going to lay waste to the UFC on the way out the door. Didn't happen.

But whatever Nate Diaz does next, we're all going to be watching. I guarantee that whatever move it is, Jake Paul or otherwise. And he is going to be at the Jake Paul fight. His teammate, Chris Avila, is going to fight on the undercard. So that should be interesting. All right. Getting through UFC 279, of course this weekend we got UFC Fight Night from Vegas with Corey Sanagan and Song Yadong.

Had Corey on the show last week. So if you missed that interview, go back and check out my interview with Corey Sanhagan on last week's installment of Fighter versus the Rattah, but right now haven't had a chance to catch up with this guy in quite a while. We just actually passed a little over a month ago, a couple weeks ago we passed a one year anniversary of his first fight with Jake

Paul and that is UFC, former UFC Walterweight champion Tyron Woodley. The reason I wanted to talk with him this time is because if you are a fan of the Karate Kid and Kobriky which just dropped on Netflix a matter of days ago, Tyrant Woodley is starring in the new season of Kobe season

and five. Love the season. Tyrant was great at it. Did some incredible action scenes. Got to do some action scenes with some OGs of the game, Johnny Lawrence, William Zabka, which was really cool. Like I said, I love Cobra Kai. It's such a geek for that show. I grew up on Karate Kid. That was, that might have been one of the biggest influences on me getting into martial arts was seeing the Karate Kid when I was a kid. I love it. So I wanted to talk about that with Tyrone. We also, of course, do talk about Jake Paul. We talk about Jake Paul Anderson-Silva, which is coming up. We'll get his thoughts on that and a whole lot more. So right now, here is my interview with Tyrone Woodley.

He is the former UFC Welterweight champion, one of the greatest welterways of all time, and he is one of the busiest men in the world, including a role in the upcoming season of Kobrkai, which I am super excited about. I am always happy to speak to Tyron Woodley. T. Wood, how are you? I'm doing good of just a little legally driving,

and, you know, me knocking out this interview, but I wanted to talk with you, because I know you've been asking me about the COBRA thing. Wonder Boy actually licked a little snippet about it earlier than he was supposed to. It was his first film that he worked on

so he just didn't know the proper way to kind of promote it. So then people start to ask some questions, am I in Copacai and his Wonderboy and Coburkeye and then once he posted that picture, they added a little small blurf with me and him on a trailer so you kind of

tease, in fact, we're in there. But they're not really going to talk much about it until today, which is the premiere. So I'm golfing real quick. That's why you see the golf trip. And then I'm heading over to get cut up, you know, and get suited to go to the Copacan premiere for season five.

Absolutely. That's awesome. I was so excited when they put the trailer out. I was like, hold on. I know that guy. I know that guy. I saw he step up the plane. I was like, I know that guy.

And I got excited about the tweet right away. You've been doing the acting thing for a while. and you've done a lot of big roles tyrant but this one i don't know like were you a karate kid fan growing up i imagine everybody was right this one kind of hit different because karate kid one is why i even thought to start martial arts in my just in general you know mean um let's think it's sorry about that karate that one is the reason why i started martial arts in general um so watching daniel son and watching johnny and watching the whole thing. It's a classic film and I suggest

anyone who has not seen Karate Kid 1, not the one James Smith that was a smash as well, but the original version of Karate Kid 1. It's still a movie right now that I feel like if you play it, no matter how old or how young, you'll still appreciate the movie. So just being able to

start martial arts based upon that film and then what I did in martial arts landing me a role in Kobra Kai and I get to work side by side with these people that I looked up for so long. And, yeah, it was just a full circle moment for me. I'm excited about it.

And, yeah, you know, I got a little ink to prove it. Oh, nice. I've had this for so long. I fought Jake ball with it. Nobody really paid attention and tripped out what it was. But I've had it since I did it. I did it while I was on set. Oh, that's awesome.

That's awesome. You know, it's funny because, you know, Karate Kid, like, in MMA, it's still huge. Like, fighters walk out to the Karate Kid theme song. People type. You hear it every single UFC event. I know you heard it. Someone yells, put him in a body bag. Without failure, somebody yells that at a UFC event.

You've done a lot of cool things in your career in terms of your acting career. I remember when you did Straton-on-on-you-did-A-Chape-on-Comp. You did a lot of cool things. But, like, was this one where you actually got to kind of geek out a little bit? Like, you're on like, I'm in Cobra guy. It's a life-simes of a culture. It's like the number one film on Netflix every time it comes out. You know what I mean?

So to be able to be on a franchise like that with a pretty strong role in the actual entire season, it was a big deal for me. And I'm going side by side with Johnny and Daniel. You know what I mean? So it's like it's a real thing. And I'll be very noticeable. And my character has a strong presence with it like that. And when you look at a karate kid, think about this. A karate kid in a sporting mixed martial art is like a diamond.

in the rough, right? You got a lot of wrestlers, you got a lot of strikers, you got a lot of you used to guys. You got very few guys that can utilize the sport of karate and excel at a level, right? Or Leo and McKita did, or Stephen Thompson, right?

Absolutely. I would say those are the top two. We've had others. George St. Pierre, you got to throw him in there. He came from a karate background and whoever else. I might be leaving some of us out. But it's not even a 1%, right it's a 0.0.0% of the people that can specialize at karate and have success.

wonder boy in my opinion him and layota machita of one and two right i don't know who's one i don't know who's two but to figure him out to train the fight it was the hardest most expensive i spent six figures in training camps to try to figure and seven seven fight win streak knocking everybody out very hard to deal with i think still today he's the quickest waltrowe I would have been the fastest, most powerful, but he was quick. I saw what he was doing and it still touched me. I saw him about to do a step off side kicking and it still hit me in the neck. Right.

That's dangerous when you can like make that decision at the last minute to do something. So now he's with me. We're on the same squad. We're in Cooper Cire. That's a whole movie itself. That's a. Yeah, that's amazing. You know, Tyron, like when you've done acting, you know, you've obviously you've done action roles.

you've done a lot of acting, but like this is one where you're actually kind of going into your roots a little bit with martial arts. And I've seen the actors talk about the training they do because it's a very physical show. You know, you have to look like you know what you're doing. How was that?

Because, you know, you know, you know how it's supposed to look. You know a real martial arts look. You've been in there. And I know my dog. So shout out to my dog. Don Lee, Ken Bakersfield. They literally are martial arts by heart,

Supreme Athletes. They've done these choreogic. for so long, what you're finding out is all these stunt coordinators, stunt performers are not becoming directors. So when you watch the movie Jamie Fox and Snoop Dog, that's Jay J.J. Perry, Taekwondo guy, stunt performer, stunt coordinator, second unit director, now director. My friend Len Odian, which I'm going to golf with it right now, he's the one that got me in a straight out of Compton, but he's also now NCIS, Hawaii, Chicago Med, all these big features because they understand the action. They've learned the storyline, they learn the cameras, but they know the action. And right now, people want to see action. So if you, from that world, it makes a TV show, Netflix, whatever, it makes it that much better.

So when you look at Cobra Chi, these are martial artists, right? They're hired martial artists. It's a whole cobra Kai gym that you see on TV, but it's also one that we have, which I got a key to, a personal gym. like a full out, we can do anything. We can film a whole movie in there, right? So they're committed to giving the people that are bringing the action there. They're committed to giving us everything that we need. All the actors have to come in.

They have to train with us. So I train most of the actors, not just the choreography, just martial arts. So they look it and feel it because being authentic is huge. Nobody wants to see a movie and it's good. Oh, my God, if I think so, we know that she wasn't real, right? absolutely yeah absolutely absolutely let me ask uh tyrant because you mentioned earlier you know wonder boy is the guy who comes from karate so you kind of think like that that's kind of his background how wasn't

for you doing the karate like i know you you do do everything in which wasn't for you it wasn't my background but guess what it became a part of it it's like when freddie crooper you see eat all the damn people in the nightmares and everybody became like a pepperoni or something on his face right he took the experience so every time i fought a jihitsu guy became a better jihisi player because I'm not just going to learn how to defend. No, I'm going to try to do that to somebody else. It's stuff that I've learned from Wonderboy from learning, you know, the reasons why he do certain things that I now have a part of my game.

You know what I mean? I may not have had the opportunity or I may have had the opportunity and not showing it, but I have those wrinkles now just from studying the kid. So it wasn't hard for me at all. Like I understand that. I know how fast. I know the chamber. I know the control.

I know, oh, yeah, I'm all into it. When I go ham, I'm going ham. So I'm going to end. I'm all with the Kiyas. I'm all with the HIAS, everything. They go with it. So it'll be very believable. I think my fans and just the fans of the series,

because I don't want to come on the series and do the series, no justice, right? I think fans of me, fans of martial arts and fans of Kopekai as a series are going to be pleased. Yeah. You mentioned working with the legends, of course, guys, you know, like Ralph Machio is on the show, of course, and all the guys.

How does it work with the younger kids? Because you're a sense, you're a teacher. Oh, man. I'm like the younger kids. Hop and little Jacob. I trained them all too. And they're like, they so young, but they like my little brothers. Devin, I was very impressed with him. He plays Kenny on a show.

This is going to be a breakout season for him. Not only as Cobur Cod, he's going to get a lot, a lot, a lot of roles after this. He's very believable. He learns quick. He's a natural at it. he very seldomly used a stun double for them. I only saw once or twice. And it was a part where, you know, me and him was kind of going.

And he, you know what I mean? He's a little kid. You know what I'm 40 years old. So a touch to me may not be a touch to him. And I had to walk him through it. Come on, let me see him, chin, man. Let me stretch you out. Da-da-da-da.

Because you don't know to check a leg kick, right? Yeah. And just to see those guys grow. And what they have to do, they have to go to school the same amount of hours they film. So we may be in the heart of a great scene and close to getting it done and they may have to stop and go and do school for two hours and they come back and film for two hour. Yeah. So the younger cast, man, they got they got a great casting crew obviously. Everybody makes you want to invest into them. And when you got a show like that, that's why

it's number one. Like the the Cobra Cod side, the other side is so many different kids that their story makes you want to just follow it. Yeah. You, uh, you know, I know you weren't necessarily the first fighter to ever do acting, but you were one of the first fighters to ever do it seriously. Like, you know, getting bigger roles and things like that. I'm the first fighter that nobody talks about that's been in the most films of any fighter ever. Rhonda Rossi and Randy Couture included. And Randy's my dog, so no shade on none of that. But I've been in some big, big franchise movie. Cutthrow City was number one. Um, corporate cause number one.

I did Asians of Shields, Sons of Anarchy, um, last ship, night ship, um, office uprising where I was freaking college duchback. So I did everything. Escape plan too with Salon, Batista. I was a Nigerian. I had an accident in that. So I've done a lot of different things, a lot of TV shows, a lot of gaming shows. They did wild and out twice.

I did a Titan game. I just did, um, a show call. I don't know. I can't talk about that. I did a show in Ireland that's coming out. Yeah. And so I've done gaming shows, reality shows, and I, you know, I signed a deal for my own show. So I've been kind of doing this by myself on a different level.

But now I have a great team with UTA. So I have agents and things like that that really put me in position to do well. Yeah. Do you actually, now you have more time to do it. Like, has that been a focus? Because like when I saw the COBRAC, I think I got excited because that is such a big show. Like, I'm sure it takes a lot of time and dedication to go in there, do that. You can't do it over a couple days.

you're there filming for weeks, maybe months of the time. So do you have the time now where you can kind of dedicate it? I had like a little place in Atlanta for a while. You know, they just paid for our housing. So instead of us doing a hotel room all those days, I just got a little small start-turn rental kind of deal where I was there. I can cook. I can, you know what I mean, wash clothes.

And I was, you know, thank God I was training because I was training and I told my coach to stay ready. I did take a couple weeks off where I could have been training a little bit harder. but the martial art was keeping me moving and then also I was doing some box in there because Atlanta I trained with Manu at Madhouse so I was able to get in with him and thankfully and luckily I was on set

of Cobra Kai and I got a call from Nikisa Jake Paul's manager and said hey man you know what they doing this interview all these people are wondering if we paid you to throw the fight man I think he should come out and talk about it and I was like shit I ain't talking about nothing because if they're talking about me, then they're talking. I don't have to prefer.

Some people think I'm retired. Some people take out through the fight. Some people think all this other stuff. As long as people are thinking some shit about you, then you're in the clear. When they stop talking about you and they stop thinking about you, that's when you got to go and fucking do something that you think is going to draw attention,

which I don't do things without. So he hit me about that. And I said, well, I'm going to be real with you, Nekisa. I'm probably not going to do it because that's not really where I'm on right now. I don't got to defend myself. And you guys maybe should not even try to defend yourself either. I said, well, let me sleep on it. If I wake up and got to change

a hard day, I'll let you know. Right. And then he kind of doing a little plug about, yeah, I don't know you, man. Tommy Fury, they're giving us heartaches about getting over here into the stakes, man. I'm like, well, you already know my number. He shouldn't be fighting Tommy anyway. So can let me know.

The next day, he hit me and said, so what if hypothetical, So I say, if we're in a hypotheticals, motherfucker, you need me. So you in Atlanta, I'm in Atlanta film a cobra cat. I'm off on this day. Let's go grab some food. Grab some food. I say yes immediately.

And I had two weeks to get ready. And I was filming 14-hour days. Sometimes we didn't finish filming until 1 a.m., my coach don't care. He trained Floyd Mayweather. What time you see Floyd running at a night time? 3, 4, 5, 6, and more. They don't care. So when I rap on set of Pover Kai, I was training at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Wow. They get up and film all day again, and then they let my coach come on set, and I can train in between if we didn't have a scene. And then they altered the choreography. I was supposed to do a couple more stunts. They changed the choreography and had another person do a couple more beats so that I can leave on time and wrap the beat to basically be done so I can actually go or train.

You know how the film war works, right? We didn't rap, and my part was a very significant part to the episode. The whole episode was basically, I mean, the whole episode was kind of climaxing to that point. So I had to do it. I committed to that. So I came to pull out. So on Thursday, we rap at two in the morning, but we still didn't get to my part. Now, it's a film.

I committed to the film. I got to continue to film. Friday, I was supposed to be in Tampa. Right? So I stayed in Atlanta Friday. I flew my entire family out Saturday so they can see me off. I don't fight, but I'll see in my family. So I flew everybody to Atlanta.

They got on the set of Cobra Kai. My son's in Cobra Chi. My oldest son, he is a partner there. I just threw that in on the low. So then they came out there and my coached state, security stay, and I trained Saturday, Sunday. Monday, I've wrapped up. I finished what they needed me to do.

I hop right on the plane. I went right to Tampa, right from there. That's wild. And I told him, I said, it's a mind thing. I said, I will be in better shape than him. He will be the one that's looking tired. Go back and watch the fight. I was winning the fight.

I was bullying him. I was walking him down. He looked to be tired. He threw a push at the same time I dropped my hand. I never, never, ever. myself make that more than I got hit with a punch for my hand down. That's all it was because adversity just to get there to train. Oh my God.

I had two weeks notice. That's including I'm only calling it in two weeks because I didn't have to cut weight to make one night and two, right? If I had to cut weight like I did in MMA, it would be one week's notice because I can't even count that last week. I was cutting 30 pounds in MMA. I was cutting from 200 to 170 in a week. That's wild. And you could, obviously, you couldn't even talk about it, right? You're filming Cobur Kai.

You can't tell people you're filming Kobe Kai. And you're stepping off the film set and stepping into a boxer ring. That's insane. No, I flew from set. Everybody knew it. They all watched my fighting in Puerto Rico. I flew from the set of Cobur Kai directly to Tampa. I didn't go home.

Like I told you, I couldn't go see my kids. I never fight on camera. I don't give a fuck. I'm always seeing my kids. before I fight, right? That's who I'm fighting for. I need to see their little faces before I get on their plane.

So when they get hard in there, I can want to fuck somebody up, right? So I flew them all to Atlanta, right? From all to Atlanta, hung out with him. And then I left Cobricide. I flew out either Monday night or Tuesday morning directly to Tampa.

And we was in fight. We got one from kicking, pushing, chopping, shopping, and blocking to write in his dude, face, talk, the shit in the press conference with no break in between it. That's wild. insane to go from that. And you're, like I said, you're on a film, so you're in a different

mindset, right? You're in a whole different mindset acting and being on set and then go into that. I'm trying to make it unbelievable, but I'm, my hands can't be by my face. You block your face. That's not how stunt work works. You throw it from underneath their chest and chin and you make it look, you make it look very exposed and very wild and loopy, right? Boxing is a complete opposite, hands up, tight, straight, clean, A to B, get to the target, quick, move out to us, right? Right. Karatee and especially the stunt scenes, there's, ah, you give me a little bit.

Ah, I give you a little bit. Ah, I look like I'm a die. Ah, I came from the depths, right? That ain't nothing to fucking do with what we do in martial arts, right? That's for a film. But in real life, it's hit, not get hit. Damage and not get damaged, right? Yeah, absolutely.

So my mindset is not only just eating craft services and laughing and doing a scene and maybe having a whole day off. to, all right, this dude is going to try to knock my fucking head off. And I said that in the thing. I said, I said, he got the power to knock me out. And I know that. But I got the power to knock you out, too. And you know that.

So when you come to fight tomorrow, I am. I want you to know that. In every depth in your body, every little vein that's popping in the pulse, I'm going to try to hurt you tomorrow. He said, I'm going to hurt you too. And we kind of agree to try to hurt each other the day before. Yeah, that's wild. Shout out to

Cobra Kai. Shout out to all the guys that supported me. My man, Ken, Bakersfield, I love you, my man, appreciate you.

He also is a second in the record on Stranger Things Collision, D1 football player, but really just use that mindset. That's why we thrive together. Don Lee,

we did our first damn movie together Olympususus Fallet way back when. He always includes me on every film that he does. I appreciate him. He a real solid dude. And I feel like

the integrity of this season was there. He got his first, he got his first directorial debut. I was able to be the person he was directing. That meant a lot to me. Shout out to rocket scientists. They make every demographic, they get every person, every age, and then make everybody buy it. And it's not, I watched them, I listened to them.

I hear the rationale why they do certain things. And you got to give them credit words, too. That's awesome. That's amazing. Can I ask real quick? You mentioned all the craziness surrounding that and actually going into Jake Paul fight. You couldn't even really talk about it because you're on a freaking film set, leaving there to go fight.

Can I ask real quick, Tyrr, did you see the news, Jake Paul and Anderson Silva? I did see that, man. I don't stay up with the internet a lot. I just do it to tap it with my fans here and there and, you know, pay a couple lights here and there, you know what I mean? But I just try. I'm in the process of living life. We sit there and we scroll so much when we watching it on the phone.

but I'm trying to get out there and live it. But I did see that. I think it's a good fight. When I hear people say, oh, now he's finally fighting a real fighter. That shit right here is funny. But Anderson Silva's a good boxer. I would say he was one of the best boxers in MMA.

I feel like I've got to, biasedly saying Jorge Mosbah, in my opinion, is the best boxer we've ever seen in MMA, based upon the fact that he pieced up KJ, news in the worst way. That was supposed to be the best boxer and striped at the time. And every time we had a chance against Nate Diaz or anybody would just strike Eve Edwards, I was in the corner for that. Outside of that, Anderson Silva's right up there and a few other guys just pure boxing. So I would say maybe on paper, I say, yeah,

I say the majority of people that are watching. I think it's a kid. I want to see him just get beat up. It's like the bully that everyone, everyone wants to see somebody teach him a lesson, but it's really a hat trick. He's training his ass off. He's athletic. I start that again. I know a lot of people want to see

Jay Paul get beat up. You know what I mean? And they want to see him taught a lesson like the bully on the playground. But he really is a kid without a kid. Not very much responsibility. No financial limitations. Energy.

He makes everything a bucket list and a challenge, right? I think that's why he likes the bets so much. So if he loses, it's not that big of a deal with. He secretly wants to win real bad because he's been fans of the combat sport world for so long. I got so many videos of the baby Faye Jake Paul wanted to take pictures with me and Logan and being fans of me back in the day

that he's just tricking everyone, but he's training his ass on. And he's got K-O power, and he's learned in to throw that particular watching you got that time in on the show Anderson Silva I love

I don't even know what to call it I guess it's come back whatever he's been doing recently in boxing after UFC just tells you recognize right you feel like you're being treated well you feel good

you know what I mean you kind of sometimes fight differently right you see people that are getting happier situations so I think on the way out you may have kind of just been going through the motions and this new freedom he has, which I have as well,

and I enjoy it. It gives him that like the little flame underneath. So I think you got that motivated Anderson, Silver. You got Jake Paul that no matter what you say, he can deal

with media and still fight. Most fighters can. Right? Absolutely. So he's shown he had no point, no choice from the beginning. That's the way.

way it was and he's shown that he can fight that way. I think it's a good fight. I'll probably be there. Yeah, it's going to be a good one. I really look forward to it. Tyron, in addition to Coburke, you mentioned you're on the golf course. I see you're golfing all the time. By the way, I forgot to say at the top of the interview and I apologize. Congratulations on your engagement. I saw the photos. That's amazing. Congratulations there. You're golfing. You always got a million of things going on. So what's coming next? Again, are you becoming a pro golfer? Are you doing pro

Golf Valley. Celebrity smoke. Everybody want to Curry. You can get it. I played in a live golf tournament. That's the people that offer T. T. T. Woods, Tiger Woods, not a hundred million. He said no.

I just did a pro-am tournament in Boston, Massachusetts. A little bit outside Boston last week. I'm probably going to do the one in Chicago. So I need that celebrity. I like the competitiveness of it, right? So I'm going to golf right now with my homie, Lynn Oding. He's one of the directors from Cobbric Kyle.

He got me in the film. He got me training. he was found me on my space said can you help my homie eve that was a wrestling like I don't know the fucking EV is he seen me this video of this dude doing all these crazy kicks I'm like alright cool that's kind of how I started training in MMA for real

so he took me golf for the first time in February so this is the second time I'm going to golf on him I'm late he's really a stickler on time so I'll crack a joke or two when I walk in off there so you never gone before February February 12 is my first day I golfed

him in Hawaii. He, um, he said, hey, man, I wish I would invite it for Hawaii. He said, hey, man, I wish I would invite you to Hawaii then. And he said, all right, um, we're filming this NCIS, Dwight tomorrow. I said, all right, cool. I said, but you got to have COVID. So, all right, cool. I did it right then. 5 a.m. The next day I was there, I filmed the show, he said, you want to go golf? And I said, yeah, I went golfing with him. I bought the most ridiculous everything. Everything Tiger Woods had, Scotty Cameron Putter, Stealth Driver, um, Jordan 4, golf shoes. and I went golf and they said,

you need to do golf lessons. Like you got on the green in two strokes on a part four. That's not normal. I think, I don't know if I, I think we've already put it as a team as a scramble,

but for what I understand, the amount of time I was in golf, I was doing very, very well. So then I did golf lessons every week, top golf every week. Now I golf three or four days a week. So now he gets to see me after that from February to now.

So I'm, I'm going to try to surprise. Well, you always got a minute. I want to flip the camera. Guess where I'm about to golf it? I'm about to golf in a golf course called Woodley Lake. Nice, nice, nice. I'm having it right now.

I don't know if it's. Okay, I see it. Yeah, I see it. You always got to put the seats. You know why? Because people will swear you a lot. That's crazy. That's crazy.

I saw you, I saw you best on the golf photos. I was like, oh, you must have been golfing for a while. You've been golfed for like 10 months. That's crazy. February is like,

that's, I'm like seven months. That's crazy. That's so crazy. Tyron, I appreciate you doing this on short notice. Obviously, Kobe kind of dropping.

I cannot wait. I want to tell your fans. I know you're going to get motion sickness, not because of the way it's in the top of my head, but because of the way I've been swerving and flipping the camera and coming back on and off.

But you can hear my, audio. This is a real from the realist. Damien, I appreciate you my dog. Be blessed. I'm going to get out here and try to try this stale driver 300 yards. That's my goal today. I love it. Tyrant, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it. We'll talk soon, okay?

Bye-bye. A big thank you, of course, to Tyron Woodley for coming on this show. I've been a while since I had a chance to catch up a tyrant. So glad he's doing well, doing the golf thing, doing the acting thing. Yeah, I think, of course, he's still not done with his fight career. He's got a lot going on. He just got engaged. So I'm glad he's keeping busy

and doing a lot of great things out there. He was one of the kind of first guys to really get into acting during his fighting career. He got a lot of action scenes. Like I mentioned, during the interview agents of Shield. He did straight out of Compton. And of course, now he's doing a cobra Kai. So it's always cool to see Tyron pop up and those kind of things. And glad he's having a great

career outside of the UFC. And I'm sure the other opportunities are going to come. If he wants to fight again, there's going to be other shows, other matches, things like that. But he's keeping himself busy with acting and doing golf and things like that. So glad Tyrant's doing well. One of the good dudes in the sport. And I was real happy to catch up with him for the show.

And of course, Cobra Kai season five, it's on Netflix. I binge it this past weekend. I watched every episode in like two days. Couldn't wait. I love that freaking show. It's so much fun. And if you're a fan of the karate kid, I mean, come on. If you haven't watched it already, I mean, come on.

I mean, go binge it right now. Cobra Kai is freaking awesome. So it was fun to talk about the show, but also to watch it this past weekend and see Tire. And I always get a little bit geeked out when I see fighters I know, you get roles like that. Of course, Taryn was in there. Wonder Boy, actually Eric Anders is also in the new season of Cobra Kai. He plays a small part in one of the early episodes. And then Wonderboy's also got a small part.

Tyrant is in more of the episodes than Eric or Wonderboy. He's in most of the season. He shows up, I want to say like this, it's 10 episodes. He shows up in five or six episodes. So Tyron's got a beefier part. But Wonder Boy's also in there. And Eric Anders is also in there, which is really cool. All right.

Want to say a big thank you, of course, to Tyron Woodley for doing the show. We'll be back next week with more Fighter versus the Rider. Lots of more coming. Lots of events coming up, of course. Going into October with UFC 280, huge fight coming up there, lots of fight night cards. We're going to have McKinsey, Dern,

on the show coming up. She's got a fight October 1st. And of course, this weekend, Corey Sanhagan and Songya Dong, as I mentioned, if you missed my interview with Corey Sanhagan, he'll be, that's last week's podcast of Fighter versus the Writer. So check that out with Corey Sanhagen as we talk about his fight with Song Ya Dong, Al J. Sterling versus T.J. Dillishaw and pretty much the lay of the land at Welter at Bantam, Wait, excuse me. So go check that out if you get a chance at some point. That's over available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. And of course over on mhmap fighting.com. Want to say a big thank you, as always, everyone that tunes in each and every week to the

fighter versus the rider. We really do appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next week. To the Vox Media Podcast Network.