Woodley Explains Decision To Give Gastelum His $9K Back

“When we go out there to fight, we basically put ourselves through the fire, and we’re not assuming we’ll be losing half our money. If the purse is $5000 to show and $5000 to win, in my mind, it’s $10,000, so I do my training camp with that in mind. Now, when you step in the cage, and you’ve put all your time, effort and money into it, and you lose, you’re only coming home with half your money, and sometimes, that can leave you economically strapped. I don’t know his financial situation, but I think that there was enough going on with it, that it was just another unneeded penalty, because it felt like I was just taking his money.

I’ve had fights that I felt I won, like when I fought Jake Shields, and that loss of the win bonus felt like somebody was taking my money. When I lost to Nate Marquardt, I was actually behind in rent on my gym, and I thought to myself, ‘How am I going to make it to the next fight?’ Those are the things that were going through my mind when I decided to give him the penalty money back.

The kid lost, had his first loss. He’s not going to get his win bonus. Dana White has probably yelled at him. His coach has probably yelled at him. He’s probably pissed off about himself. So I just can’t find it in my heart to do that right now. But, I got the win, I had a good performance, and I feel good about it.”

Classy right?

In a recent interview with Bloodyelbow.com‘s Steph Daniels, Tyron Woodley explained his decision to give Kelvin Gastelum his money back.

Prior to their UFC 183 co-main event, Gastelum missed weight by 10 pounds, and as a result he was forced to give up 30% of his purse to his opponent.