Tyron Woodley details lesson he learned from Jon Jones

Former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley says he has learned a valuable lesson by watching the career of reigning light heavyweight champ Jon Jones — one MMA’s most polarizing athletes.

It’s all about embracing chaos.

“I am best when I’m in chaos,” Tyron Woodley said in a recent appearance on The Ariel Helwani MMA Show (transcript via MMA News). “And I had to come to grips with that. I heard Jon Jones say he didn’t train in between camps. I’m like, damn, I thought I was the only one. It was kind of my hidden secret.

“And if you notice, Jon…not to compare myself to Jon because, in my opinion, he may be the best MMA athlete we’ve ever seen…but Jon has had so much chaos in his life outside the Octagon, but he’s managed to hone in inside the Octagon,” Tyron Woodley continued. “And I’ve found that, don’t run from it. Don’t hide from it. God built you a certain way.

“And I say this time and time again, the renaissance man was a man that did a lot of things good but did no things great. But that was his ass; that ain’t me. I won’t sit on gifts. I won’t sit on gifts that God gave me. Because if you sit on them, you bury them, they get taken away,(and) somebody else do it.”

Until recently, Tyron Woodley was scheduled to return to the cage opposite a fellow former champion Robbie Lawler in the main event of UFC Minneapolis. Unfortunately, a hand injury nixed his planned comeback. The card will now be headlined by a heavyweight tilt between Junior dos Santos and Francis Ngannou.

At this stage, it’s not clear when or where he’ll be returning to action, but from the sounds of it, he’ll be in a good head space when he does.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 5/24/2019.