FORMER UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley has sarcastically claimed he took a ‘dive’ in his rematch with Jake Paul.
The Chosen One was on the receiving end of a viral KO in the sixth round of his second clash with the YouTuber, which some observers thought was fixed.
Woodley, 39, has seen the claims he was paid to take a ‘dive’ and has jokingly concurred with his detractors – insisting his faceplanting of the canvas was the result of Paul’s well-timed overhand right.
During an appearance on The MMA Hour, he jokingly said: “Yeah, I took a motherf***in’ dive.
“But it wasn’t on purpose, that motherf***er hit me with some shit.”
Woodley became the butt of several jokes after the first clean KO loss of his combat sports career, with some of his fellow MMA fighters also firing shots.
But the Missouri mauler insists Paul would get the better of a lot of them.
He said: “A lot of people are saying that, ‘Oh, you lost to him again. You got knocked out.’
“He would literally f**k a lot of y’all up.
“MMA fighters and other people that are just bumping at the gums. He’s an athletic kid that don’t have no job beyond this.
“He don’t have no kids, he don’t have no businesses he’s running.
“He can have the best trainer, the best coaches, the best nutrition, the most focus – he can separate himself.
“He don’t have the financial burden. Most MMA fighters, when we first start, we don’t have money. We do what we can do.
“We get whatever training we get can help us out to see a future in this.”
Woodley has already made peace with his spectacular defeat to the former Disney star but still can’t help lament the split-second he dropped his left hand in the sixth stanza.
He asked: “Why, man? Why did I drop my hand at that moment time.”
The former Strikeforce star later said: “Had I not dropped that hand, had I continued to fight the way it was going, we would’ve been looking at something different.
“So I just gotta, you know, take the bitter with the sweet and keep it moving.”
Woodley has vowed not to hang up his competitive gloves following the brutal loss and is currently targeting a showdown with former UFC welterweight title challenger Dan Hardy.
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