The guys a decorated wrestler and we know he has good GNP and decent submission game from the top. In the first round he easily took colby down with a single leg but didn't follow him on the ground.
RDA took colby down like 3 times.
I honestly feel that was his path to victory. A boring lay and pray grind. Doesn't help that his main coach is dean thomas. They don't have any real advice or gameplan other than "tyron you need to get serious".
Woodley gets tired wrestling so that was always, and always a non-starter. Citing what he did in college really doesn't help him in MMA. He's said wrestling tires him, Colby confirmed that when they wrestled TW was good for the first few minutes but he gassed and would simply give up and based on what we've seen in the UFC, it sure looks like that's all we could expect to happen.
And his corner gave him the advice he needed most - "Tyron, we need you to go FORWARD", which he would do for 1 or 2 seconds and then let Colby push him back to the fence. There is no corner in the world who can help a fighter win when he insists on moving backwards and not throwing any punches.
To blame his corner seems like a desperate attempt to not place blame where it belongs - on the fighter.
My theory is that he has serratus issues that would match all the physical problems we see him display.
Serratus issues would make it hard to keep his hands up and continue punching (so combos give way to single punches then no punches), breathe comfortably (so poor cardio), drain his shoulder and arm muscles faster than healthy ppl (so rapidly reduced output, especially if a nerve is impinged or irritated), compromise his shoulder movement (so multiple shoulder surgeries), limit growth of his back and chest (so small torso compared to arms), and make his ribs pop worse and more violently than most (how his last fight ended) so it's at least a working theory that matches observations.
Either that or he really has a foundational mental block that simply prevents him from going forward with punches. And hearing his corner scream to go forward, go forward, go forward, I think he’s training for that. So either his body just can’t do it in real conditions when it’s going full throttle and being challenged at 100% or else his mind is really a unique giving up machine. Either way it sure doesn’t seem like his corner is avoiding telling him to go forward and NOT back up. The man backs up when he has success and backs Colby up. HOW do you coach a guy who will do this 100% of the time??
