Former champ Tyron Woodley ready to resume UFC ‘journey’

Former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley still has no idea what happened to him the night he lost his title to Kamaru Usman at T-Mobile Arena in March 2019. He knows what the result did to him, though.

“I went into a state of depression,” Woodley said Thursday. “I really wasn’t talking to a lot of people. I was eating terrible, I wasn’t training. I just did not expect it.”

Woodley will return to competition for the first time since his two-and-a-half year title reign ended when he fights Gilbert Burns in the main event of UFC on ESPN 9 on Saturday at the UFC’s Apex facility.

The card, which kicks off with women’s strawweight standout Mackenzie Dern taking on Hannah Cifers, airs on ESPN beginning at 6 p.m.

Women’s flyweight contenders Katlyn Chookagian and Antonina Shevchenko meet on the preliminary card, which airs on both ESPN and ESPN-Plus, beginning at 3 p.m.

Woodley has no interest on looking back on what went wrong when he suffered his first loss since 2014.

“I can’t explain it, so I don’t have to adjust,” he said. “I wasn’t in my body that night. I’m just focused on moving forward. Every fighter has had those fights where they just didn’t feel like they were in their own body.”

Woodley says while he wasn’t looking past Usman, he had just built such confidence in his process and his body of work that he couldn’t fathom losing. That’s part of what made the unanimous-decision defeat so difficult to process.

“I felt like I had everything in position to win, so I really had to deal with that,” he said. “It took longer than any other fight in my career. I got to a point where I feel like I faced it head on. I feel like I’m a better fighter and human being for it. I feel like it was necessary for my journey.”

That will continue just miles from where he lost the belt with a matchup against Burns, a winner of five straight bouts who is looking to take a big step up should he add Woodley to his hit list.

It’s not a title fight or even a guaranteed top-contender bout, but that’s fine with Woodley.

“I’m not fighting to anybody’s level or anybody’s record or name. I’m just fighting to my expectations. My motivation isn’t beating Gilbert or beating anybody else. It’s about performing . If I perform at the level I’m supposed to, I’ll beat anyone on any day of the week anyway.”

Woodley didn’t arrive at that mindset easily.

“The switch wasn’t instant,” Woodley said. “It took months.”

He was able to start getting himself out of his recent depression by deciding to go back to the mentality he brought into the sport when he first transitioned from college wrestling star to pro fighter.

“Once i had the belt and started reigning, it got to be so much about strategy,” he said. “For the rest of my career, just winning is never going to be enough anymore. I made that commitment to myself, I made that commitment to my coaches and family that if I’m going out there you’re going to get maximum performance and maximum effort.”

That’s what he will be trying to do on Saturday night in front of an empty arena in southwest Las Vegas.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.