Woodley: There is honor in fighting teammates
Tyron Woodley finds honor in fighting fellow ATT fighter Robbie Lawler on Sat
The issue of whether fighters should fight friends is a long running one, with the UFC President advocating the yes position for now many years. White argues that, among other points, MMA is an individual not a team sport, and that the equivalent would be one professional team refusing to play another because they have friends on the opposing team.
On the other side of the debate are a number of fighters, including the UFC G.O.A.T Anderson Siva, who says fighting is different that team sports. In soccer, you are not trying to hurt each other, and that it isn’t right to try to hurt someone helping you reach your goals.
Robbie Lawler and Tyron Woodley fight at UFC 201 on Saturday July 30, 2016 at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. Both are members of ATT, but while Lawler trains out of the headquarters in Coconut Creek, FL, Woodley primarily trains over 1,000 miles away, at ATT Evolution in St. Louis, Missouri.
Lawler recently told Damon Martin for FOX Sports that the two were not teammates.
“Woodley was there before me, he’s been part of ATT long before I got there, but he hasn’t been down in Coconut Creek doing his training camps. Like I don’t think he’s been down there for two years and he was rarely down there before so I don’t really look at him as a teammate.”
Woodley says that he and Lawler have only trained a few times, and although ATT owner Dan Lambert extended an offer for Woodley to train too at the Coconut Creek headquarters, he politely deferred to Lawler.
I’ve been blessed to have hospitality from several different camps I’ve been able to train at and get an approval by the American Top Team guys to go anywhere, said Woodleyrecently, as transcribed by Tristen Critchfield for Sherdog. So in this situation, Robbie was the first guy that brought home UFC gold from the American Top Team. It just feels like the right thing to do to give him the home court advantage, to train 100 percent there and make things as professional as possible.
His thoughts on what a teammate is, it’s what he said: A lot of training side by side and getting guys ready. But my idea of a person who’s affiliated with the American Top Team, I feel like I encompass all those things. I started out as an amateur with American Top Team. I was a coach for four of the top five or so of the American Top Teams. I was a bag of bones, f—ing getting thrown around, sparring two times a day and that was my role at that position.
I was just a sparring partner. Then I progressed to the position where I’m at right now and I’m on the American Top Team. And I put my own fight money, my own money behind the name and the brand. But I feel like I am American Top Team. And I encompass everything that it stands for. His concept is that you should be there, down there, live there, train there and he’s allowed his own opinion of it, and no, I did not take it personal.
At the end of the day, a lot of people have been talking about the fact that we are affiliated or wear the same patch on our shorts or swing the same banner, but I believe there’s honor in that. I’m a person who believes that if a team that’s producing a champion and producing contenders in that same division, then the coaches should be proud of that and pat themselves on the back because they’re really creating a dynasty, so that’s the way I take it.
