Tyron Woodley needed just two minutes and 12 seconds to claim the UFC welterweight title at UFC 201 on Saturday night as he ended his fight against Robbie Lawler in the first round.
The new champion caught Lawler with a big right hand in the first round, before moving in to finish the job with a short flurry of punches. With the California native on the ground and unable to get his hands up to defend himself, referee Dan Miragliotta stepped in to call an end to the fight.
Speaking after the fight, Woodley said that he had told Dana White beforehand that he was expecting to have the belt wrapped around his waist, and there was only one person he wanted to hand the title over to him.
"Since I was 18 or 19 years old watching this sport," he told White, "and I've envisioned you would be wrapping this belt around me, so don't send nobody else up!"
Speaking to Ariel Helwani, Woodley added that "I expected to be the champion and I trained in that manner, so I'm not really surprised that I won the fight. I guess that could play into the part of me not jumping on the cage and going crazy, but I didn't come here to lose.
"Being a champion, which is the first step and I'm at that point. I want to reign over this division and there's money in this sport now, there's a lot of eyeballs on this sport now. We didn't sell for $4 billion for nothing, people see something in it. I want to go out there and start providing for my family and leaving a legacy behind."
Although there had been rumours that the Lawler may be eyeing up a fight against Conor McGregor, especially when he said that he would have taken the Irishman's soul, there was no such talk from the new champion.
He made it clear that he was looking for a payday, but didn't mention the Irishman, stating instead that he was looking at taking on Georges St-Pierre or Nick Diaz instead.
"I was always envisioning fighting Nick Diaz [...] he's put enough butts in seats and sold enough pay-per-views that, if his brother is on a card and he's going to make a huge pay day, why shouldn't he be on a card making a pay day?
Also Georges St-Pierre is the number one welterweight of all time. You can't say you're the best in the world if you've never fought him before. If that happened it would be a huge honour."
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