The co-main event for this Saturday’s historic fight card is a welterweight bout: Tyron Woodley vs Stephen Thompson. This should be a very interesting fight as we have a force vs finesse match up. Let’s take a look at these two brilliant fighters, how they match up, and what I think will happen this weekend.
Tyron Woodley
Physique
The first thing I want to touch on is Woodley’s extreme physical attributes. The easiest way to describe Woodley is explosive. But what does explosive mean? I think about velocity – speed in a given direction. When Woodley explodes forward behind his right hand (or a takedown attempt), he moves with more velocity than most other welterweights. It’s the power, speed, and acceleration of his attacking techniques that make him dangerous.
Spontaneity is another element; Woodley can go 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye, so opponents rarely have time to react.
This does a couple of things: it keeps opponents hesitant knowing that Woodley can explode on them, and it forces them to prefer long-distance fighting rather than close-quarters fighting. Meeting Woodley at boxing range is very inadvisable; he moves so fast and possesses some pretty slick boxing skills. This is why most fighters try to stay outside of that hot zone.
Striking
Woodley knows of his physical advantages, and he structures his offense around them. His right hand is easily his most effective punch; his left doesn’t really enter the equation much. However, his limited striking offense is NOT necessarily preferable. Against Kelvin Gastelum, it was a battle of overhand rights, and Woodley won albeit not very impressively. Both fighters relied on a lot of the same combinations. Since then, Woodley has begun developing a meta that would then help him win the welterweight title. This meta involves using feints (both his hands and level changes) to get a reaction out of his opponent.
Against Robbie Lawler, Woodley feinted with a right straight, flashed the left, and then loaded up on the right hook all while charging forward. This set up caused Lawler to tighten his hands in anticipation of the first punch, but left him susceptible to the big shot at the end. These feints also allow Woodley to cover a large amount of distance.
One weapon I want to bring up is Woodley’s leg kicks. You have to imagine that Woodley’s kicks pack some serious thunder since he’s built like a linebacker. This can be seen when he took Jake Shields off his feet several times, or how about the damage he was able to inflict on Carlos Condit? I’ll talk about how effective they may or may not be later.
Wrestling
Woodley has a NCAA Div I wrestling background, so in terms of pure wrestling he is quite high level. However, out of his 8 UFC appearances, he is only 3/5 in takedowns. It’s an average success rate, but a low total number of attempts. Digging a little deeper, we can find that the 3 completed takedowns were against Carlos Condit; someone with notoriously poor takedown defense.
So even though Woodley’s wrestling is technically very solid, it hasn’t made a significant impact on his MMA career like one would expect. I think it’s fair to say that the threat of his wrestling is really the weapon. When he feints a level change, you MUST respect it because if you don’t, you’re going to be put on your back. From there, Woodley is a grinder, and is unlikey to look for submissions.
Stephen Thompson
Physique
Thompson is built much different than Woodley in that he’s 3″ taller and 1″ longer. Thompson’s stance further accentuates this length difference. Thompson stands bladed so his hip is pointed at his opponent. With a long, sprawled out base and hands down by his side, he can throw kicks and blitz with punches while staying in balance.
He’s most known for attacks of the lead right leg from the southpaw stance. He’s very light on it which allows him to throw it at a moment’s notice. It’s common to see Thompson tapping with his right foot as a way to distract his opponent, knowing a kick could come at any time and smack him in the mouth or gut.
Another element to Thompson’s physique is his hip dexterity. It’s truly remarkable the things that Thompson can do with his lead leg. He throws side kicks, teeps, question marks, and roundhouses as if they’re jabs. Impressive control, technique, and accuracy. This level of comfort Thompson stems from his lifetime of training traditional martial arts, and being a 57-0 kickboxer.
Footwork & Striking
Thompson’s dangerous kicking arsenal is precisely why most opponents pressure him. The theory is that it’s more difficult to throw kicks if you’re being forced to backpedal and are unable to plant your feet. However, Thompson has answers for this. Thompson will fire back, disrupting the forward movement before exiting safely. His kicks also act as nice speed bumps for advancing opponents.
If his opponent decides to barrel through the threat of these strikes (like Rory MacDonald was able to do), then Thompson will simply slide along the perimeter of the Octagon. MacDonald employed some smart cage-cutting techniques, but wasn’t able to execute on the backed-up Thompson. He let Thompson get off with strikes to create some space and escape to the right or left.
Wonderboy is dangerous the whole time on the back foot. Even if he’s getting backed into the cage and cut off, Thompson will intercept his opponent with punches (primarily the left straight). It’s typical of Thompson to circle one way, explode forward with an intercepting combination, and subsequently change direction. This constant fluid chain of movement often leaves his opponents disrupted, and further susceptible to attacks.
Anti-wrestling
Thompson’s footwork does more than set up striking opportunities and defense; they help him avoid grapplers. Even though Thompson has been working diligently on his wrestling, it’s still something fighters will continue to exploit. It’s already difficult to put Thompson up against the cage, as we’ve established, but even harder to get a hold of him. Even a skilled wrestler in Johny Hendricks was unable to complete a takedown despite having a decent chance to. It’s clear Thompson’s defensive wrestling is quite improved from his second UFC outting against Matt Brown in which he gave up 5 takedowns.
Tyron Woodley vs Stephen Thompson
So how do these two match up with one another? This is what we’ll find out Saturday night as Tyron Woodley vs Stephen Thompson takes place in the co-main event slot.
Woodley has the power to end Thompson’s night in one punch. This is a threat he brings in to almost every fight. However, Thompson has a striking defense rate of 59%, as does Tyron Woodley. I trust Thompson has the striking expertise to avoid any predictable right hands, but he’ll have to watch out for Woodley’s set ups and traps.
Furthermore, he needs to be wary of Woodley’s other main weapon – leg kicks. Woodley’s right low kick might be able to target the inside of Thompson’s leg, but remember, Thompson stands very bladed. This will allow him to check that right low kick from Woodley, but leave him very exposed to the lead low kick from the left. This may be a weapon Woodley tries to use.
As far as the wrestling goes, I don’t expect Woodley to have much success shooting from distance. Despite Woodley’s explosiveness and ability to cover ground, Thompson should be able to stay out of harms way. He is skilled enough with his footwork and has quick enough reflexes to avoid Woodley’s shots from distance. However, if Woodley can put Thompson up against the cage, I suspect he’ll have the strength and wrestling technique to put Thompson on the mat. However, Johny Hendricks was unable to get Thompson down from this position, so maybe Woodley won’t be successful either.
Things to note:
One thing I want to point out is a weakness in Tyron Woodley’s footwork. In virtually every fight, he starts out extremely cautious. Even against Lawler, he positions himself on the perimeter and gives ground immediately.
He later changed this up by inching forward, backing Lawler off with some feints and the threat of his right hand. But another thing interesting about the Lawler fight was how he dealt with the kicks. Lawler, a southpaw, threw several straight kicks to the body to which Woodley responded rather passively.
This leads me to believe that similar kicks thrown by Thompson would get a similar reaction, and thus be successful at backing Woodley up. This is significant because we know how much Woodley struggled being backed against the cage against Rory MacDonald. If Thompson can consistently back Woodley up with kicks, it’ll let him choral Woodley around the Octagon in ways that he wants; subsequently putting him in position to win the fight.
On the flip-side, there is something equally concerning about Thompson. While Thompson’s kicks are truly extraordinary, his punching technique can leave him a little exposed. He comes from a traditional martial arts background which typically involves keeping the head straight up and having adequate hand defense.
Because of this, he leaves himself exposed when blitzing or intercepting his opponents with punches. This may give Woodley the window needed to land his big right hand. Thompson will have to be extra cautious when moving forward on Woodley with punches.
The Verdict
This fight is really a hard one to predict because of the stopping power Woodley brings to the table. However, I believe this is Thompson’s fight to win. His kicks are fantastic at maintaining distance, which will make it difficult for Woodley to set up his explosive attacks. Even if Woodley does succeed in taking Thompson down, I have faith in Thompson’s defensive wrestling; he should be able to get off the ground and back to distance. From there, I expect Thompson to batter Woodley with kicks and prohibit him from advancing. I’m not sure if Thompson will be able to get the finish, but as long as he stays defensively minded, he should be able to control the fight for as long as he needs. Expect a lot of footwork as usual (both offensive and defensive) from Thompson to create a difficult target for Woodley to land on.
I’ll take Thompson by a five-round unanimous decision win as he flusters Woodley.
